What BBVA Research does

BBVA Research is the economic research and studies division (Centro de estudios económicos) of Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria, S.A., one of the largest financial institutions in the Eurozone. The department operates as BBVA's think tank, producing economic forecasts, country situation reports, working papers, and Big Data-powered real-time indicators covering Spain, Mexico, Turkey, Colombia, Argentina, Peru, Brazil, Uruguay, China, the Eurozone, and the United States. Content is distributed free of charge in Spanish and English through bbvaresearch.com, a dedicated Big Data portal (bigdata.bbvaresearch.com), email newsletters, social media channels, and academic conferences. The entity serves the general public, businesses, government policymakers, academic institutions, and financial institutions with no commercial transaction between content provider and consumer.

Its core product surface is organized around three indicator systems: daily Economic Activity Indicators tracking consumption by category and payment method, investment components, and sectoral activity; Geopolitical Indicators using AI-driven media sentiment analysis for economic policy uncertainty, trade policy uncertainty, geopolitical risk, political tensions, protests, and bilateral tensions; and Regional, Provincial, and Urban Indicators offering granular geographic disaggregation. Underlying technology leverages BBVA's proprietary bank transaction records, card spending data, administrative datasets, and alternative sources such as ArXiv preprint repositories and Google search trends. AI/ML components include Random Forest models achieving R2 above 0.92 for consumption prediction with Shapley value explainability, NLP pipelines for sentiment scoring, high-frequency nowcasting models, and anomaly detection applied to real-time disruption events (e.g., the April 2025 Iberian Peninsula blackout). The Big Data & AI division, led by Alvaro Ortiz with Tomasa Rodrigo as lead economist, produces methodological publications on monetary policy transmission, carbon footprint analysis, and behavioral research.

The business model is non-commercial. BBVA Research operates as an internal cost center supporting BBVA's market intelligence, brand reputation, and analytical edge in its core Latin American and European banking markets. There is no pricing, no subscription fee, and no paying customer base. Strategic value flows indirectly to BBVA's overall franchise rather than through standalone economics. The department is funded entirely by its parent and is staffed by principal economists for each geography (Saide Arántzazu Salazar for Mexico, Seda Guler Mert as Chief economist for Türkiye, Ali Batuhan Barlas as Principal economist for Türkiye, Julián Cubero as Lead economist for Climate change economics) and supplemented by academic collaborations with University of Cambridge, University College London, CUNEF University, and Barcelona School of Economics. As such, conventional venture-style revenue, funding, or ARR metrics do not apply.

Name

BBVA Research

Legal name

Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria, S.A.

Website

https://bbvaresearch.com

Company type

Public

Founded year

1932

Operating status

Operating

Headcount range

1,001–5,000 employees

Short description

BBVA Research is the economic research division of Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria, producing free economic forecasts, situation reports, and Big Data-powered real-time indicators for 10+ countries. It serves the general public, businesses, governments, academics, and financial institutions worldwide with AI-driven analysis built on proprietary bank transaction data.

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Headquarters

HQ city

Madrid

HQ country

Spain

HQ region

Europe

Offices1 record

Markets served

GTM type

B2B

Offering type

Services

Cost components

Personnel, Technology or R&D, Operations, Marketing or Sales, Others

Revenue model

1. Research Services (Internal to BBVA): BBVA Research operates as an internal economic research division of Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria (BBVA), providing research services to the bank's business units, customers, and the general public free of charge. It does not generate direct revenue but supports the bank's overall value proposition as a financial services provider.

Go-to-market motion1 record

Distribution channels3 records

Marketing channels7 records

Core offering

BBVA Research is the economic research and studies division of Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria (BBVA), publishing country-level economic situation reports, annual macroeconomic forecasts, and real-time Big Data and AI-powered indicators covering consumption, investment, regional activity, and geopolitical sentiment for markets including Spain, Mexico, Türkiye, Colombia, Argentina, Peru, China, the Eurozone, the United States, and Uruguay. All publications and indicators are distributed at no charge through bbvaresearch.com, the dedicated Big Data portal, and email newsletters, serving BBVA's business units, financial sector clients, policymakers, and academic researchers.

Product overview

BBVA Research is the economic research center of Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria, offering a comprehensive platform of Big Data and AI-powered economic intelligence products. The core offering includes three main indicator systems: (1) Economic Activity Indicators for daily monitoring of consumption, investment, and sectoral activity; (2) Geopolitical Indicators Dashboard providing real-time media sentiment analysis for economic, political, and global issues monitoring; and (3) Regional/Provincial/Urban Indicators delivering granular geographic economic data. Complementing these are Economic Forecasts with annual projections for major economies, and an extensive Publications library of situation reports and working papers. The Big Data & AI Research module represents a specialized add-on providing methodological innovations in real-time macroeconomic analysis using bank transaction records, ML models, and AI-driven sentiment analysis.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Products and services

• Geopolitical Indicators Dashboard Real-time media sentiment indicators developed with AI techniques to monitor the global geopolitical landscape, including economic sentiment, policy uncertainty, geopolitical risk, political tensions, protests, conflicts, and bilateral tensions by country.
• Economic Activity Indicators Daily economic indicators tracking consumption by categories and payment methods, investment components, and foreign sector activity with detailed sector-level analysis.
• Regional, Provincial and Urban Indicators Highly detailed daily economic activity indicators disaggregated by regions, provinces, and cities for granular geographic analysis.
• Economic Forecasts Annual economic forecasts by country including GDP, inflation, interest rates, exchange rates, fiscal balances, and current account balances for Eurozone, Mexico, Spain, Türkiye, Argentina, Colombia, China, Peru, Uruguay, US, and commodities.
• BBVA Research Publications Extensive library of economic situation reports, working papers, and specialized analyses covering Argentina, Brazil, China, Colombia, Mexico, Peru, Spain, Türkiye, Uruguay, and global trade topics.
• Global Issues Monitoring Tracking of technological progress (via ArXiv papers), semiconductor sentiment, cyberattacks, private investment/nearshoring, artificial intelligence perception, environment/climate change, migration trends, and inequality indicators.
• Big Data & AI Research Publications Featured research works applying Big Data techniques and AI to macroeconomic analysis, including monetary policy transmission, consumption patterns, carbon footprint inequality, and real-time economic monitoring.

Quantifiable outcome

• Daily economic activity indicators available for multiple countries
• +2 more outcomes

Named customers1 record

Segments4 records

Ideal customer profiles3 records

Technology focussed Yes

API detail

Has API

No

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

AI capability6 records

Feature4 records

Partnerships

Five partnerships are on record, tiered core and minor.

• University of CambridgecoreStrategic or Co-development PartnerAcademic collaboration with Professor Vasco M. Carvalho on research including Spanish household carbon footprint analysis and economic studies using bank transaction data.
• University College LondoncoreStrategic or Co-development PartnerAcademic collaboration with Professor Stephen Hansen on research involving unstructured data and machine learning algorithms for behavioral analysis.
• CUNEF UniversitycoreStrategic or Co-development PartnerAcademic collaboration with Professor José V. Rodríguez Mora on bank transaction data research and inequality studies.
• Barcelona School of EconomicsminorStrategic or Co-development PartnerAcademic collaboration including contributions from researchers like Gergely Buda on economic research projects.
• Banca d'Italia and Federal Reserve BoardcoreStrategic or Co-development PartnerJoint conference collaboration on Nontraditional Data & Statistical Learning with Applications to Macroeconomics, presenting research on real-time economic monitoring.

Scale indicators3 records

Recent moves6 records

Expansion highlights5 records

Emerging players

• M Science: Alternative-data provider offering proprietary datasets (including transaction-based consumer data) and analytics to institutional investors. Comparable to BBVA Research's Big Data / AI-driven alternative-data orientation from a non-bank angle.
• Mastercard SpendingPulse: Card-network-based retail spending index providing high-frequency consumption insights across global markets. Directly comparable to BBVA Research's real-time consumption indicators, but at broader geographic scale and powered by network-level data.

Direct peers

• Citi Research: Citi's global research arm producing country-level economic outlooks and thematic research across EM and DM. Comparable in scale, scope, and the use of proprietary bank flows/data in research outputs.
• Bank of America Global Research: Large global bank research desk providing macroeconomic, country, and thematic research with broad multi-region coverage. Comparable as a bank-affiliated research operation competing for institutional readership.
• HSBC Global Research: Global bank research desk with deep emerging-market coverage (Asia, LatAm, Middle East). Directly comparable as a bank-affiliated multi-country economic and markets research operation with significant EM overlap.
• JPMorgan Global Research: Global investment bank's research division producing macroeconomic forecasts, country reports, and nowcasting models. Closely comparable to BBVA Research as a bank-affiliated macro/economic research desk serving institutional clients and the public.
• Santander Research: Direct competitor as another large Spanish bank with significant Latin American retail banking footprint. Produces comparable country economic reports for Spain, Brazil, Mexico, Argentina, Chile, and other LatAm markets where BBVA also operates.
• Goldman Sachs Research: Bank research division delivering top-down economic analysis, market outlooks, and increasingly data-driven insights. Directly comparable in function and delivery model (free access, multi-country coverage, thought-leadership positioning).
• BNP Paribas Research: European bank's research portal publishing country economic studies, forecasts, and thematic pieces. Closely comparable to BBVA Research as a Eurozone-headquartered bank with strong EM (especially Latin America) coverage overlap.

Broad incumbents

• Banco de España (BdE) - Economic Research: Spanish central bank's research division publishing working papers and economic bulletins on the Spanish and euro area economy. Comparable in subject matter (macro/Spain) but operates as a public monetary authority rather than a commercial bank arm.

Market position

Strengths5 records

Weaknesses5 records

Competitive moat4 records

Key risks6 records

Key highlights7 records

Customer concentration

• Xtwitter.com/BBVAResearch
• YouTubeyoutube.com/BBVAResearch
• LinkedInlinkedin.com/company/bbva-research
• Instagraminstagram.com/bbva_research

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Profiles6 records

Funding overview

Funding rounds

Investors

Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

M&A

Investments

M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

Frequently asked questions about BBVA Research