
Active
This profile is actively maintained
Active
This profile is actively maintainedWebsite | https://www.bbva.com/en/ |
Headquarters |
C. Sauceda, 28
28050 Madrid
Spain
|
CEO/chair |
Onur Genç CEO |
Supervisor | |
Ownership |
listed on Bolsa de Madrid, Bolsa Mexicana de Valores & NYSE
BBVA's shareholder structure can be accessed here. |
Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria (BBVA), is a multinational Spanish banking group. It was formed in 1999 from a merger of Banco Bilbao Vizcaya, founded in 1857, and Argentaria. It provides financial services in over 30 countries. The group has a leading position in the Spanish market, where it began operating over 150 years ago. It also has franchises in South America, where it is the main financial institution in Mexico. It is one of the 15 biggest banks in the United States, where it has a franchise in the Sunbelt region. In March 2017 BBVA acquired a 49.85% ownership of GarantiBank, Turkey.
BBVA's most important sustainability commitments can be found at the website sections listed below.
BBVA is linked to a number of companies and projects that BankTrack considers controversial (so called Dodgy Deals), e.g. as a current or past financier or through an expression of interest. The profiles below provide more details on the nature of BBVA's link to these deals.
BBVA's whistleblowing channel allows anybody to report confidentially and, if they wish, anonimously, any breaches of the Code of Conduct or applicable laws, including human rights complaints. Individuals and communities can lodge a complaint here.
Stakeholders may also raise complaints via the OECD National Contact Points (see OECD Watch guidance).
BBVA is an Equator Principles signatory. While the Equator Principles have no official grievance mechanism, complaints relating to this bank's financing of Equator Principles projects can be filed through our own website www.equator-complaints.org.
This page evaluates BBVA's responses to instances of alleged human rights violations linked to its finance, raised by civil society organisations. It is not intended to be exhaustive, but covers selected impacts raised by BankTrack and other civil society partners since 2016. For the full scoring methodology, see here. For more information about BankTrack's evaluation of bank responses to human rights impacts, see the 2021 report "Actions speak louder: assessing bank responses to human rights violations".
The bank provided no detail on whether it engaged with its client or took any appropriate action.
Following the bank's response: The bank stated that ""Drummond is no longer a BBVA customer"" following the sale of BBVA's US subsidiary in November 2020. Whilst the bank has disengaged with the company, this does not consitute appropriate action according to rights-holders involved in raising the issue with the bank as the bank has merely sold the subsidiary that maintains the financial relationship between the bank and the company, rather than ensuring that finance for Drummond was suspended. Therefore, the score remains unchanged.
No information available on whether the bank monitored progress.
Following the bank's response: The bank noted that ""Drummond is no longer a BBVA customer"" and therefore the bank was not in a position to monitor the progress of the company. As the bank did not provide any details on whether it monitored the impact on rights-holders involved in raising the issue with the bank of its own action of disengaging from the company, the score remains unchanged.
Following the bank's response: The bank has not provided details on how it monitored the progress of specific companies or how the bank monitored the impact on rights-holders involved in raising the issue with the bank of its own action of updating the Agriculture sector policy. Therefore, the score remains unchanged.
Banks and Climate
The 2023 Banking on Climate Chaos report showed that BBVA provided US$ 29.51 in financing to the fossil fuel industry between 2016 and 2022. Find further details on BBVA fossil fuel portfolio and how it compares to other large banks globally on Fossil Banks No Thanks and in the Banking on Climate Chaos report.
Partner organisation Reclaim Finance tracks the coal, oil and gas policies of financial institutions, including banks, in their Coal Policy Tool (CPT) and the Oil and Gas Policy Tracker (OGPT). BankTrack works closely with Reclaim Finance and endorses their policy assessments. Find further details on their assessment of BBVA's fossil fuel policy below.
Banks and Human Rights
BankTrack assessed BBVA in its 2022 Global Human Rights Benchmark, where it achieved 7.5 points out of 14 and was ranked as a front runner. In addition, BBVA scored 0.3 out of 3 on how it responds to alleged human rights violations linked to its finance, which were raised by civil society organisations. More information is detailed in the "Accountability" section of this profile.