All posts tagged bbva

  • March 26, 2018

    The Future of Payments

    future-of-payments

    Last Thursday, I had the opportunity to moderate an interesting panel on the “Future of Payments” at Finnovista’s yearly Fintech event called Finnosummit in Bogota, Colombia. This is a topic about which I have definite opinions.  Since I was moderating the panel with experienced executives from MercadoPago and Mastercard, it wasn’t appropriate for me to elaborate on my views, so I will use this blog to share my thoughts on the subject.

    For the longest time, I’ve felt there were a number of opportunities available in the payments space, particularly in Latin America. After researching this a little and, over the years, meeting a number of startups in the space, I’ve become more and more convinced of the same.

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    No Comments / English, General /

  • February 16, 2017

    Digital Transformation Up Close and Personal

    Openpay-officeA year ago, I joined the New Digital Business group within BBVA, a large global bank actively transforming its business. Several weeks ago, we publicly announced the acquisition of digital payments startup Openpay, the culmination of a project that myself and a great boss within said business unit worked on during the last year. I’m looking forward to the huge impact that Openpay (see filtered photo of HQ above) and its impressive founders, Roberto Bargagli, Eric Núñez and Heber Lazcano will have on BBVA’s digital business.

    I’m actually writing this post from Queretaro, where this company is headquartered and I have the good fortune to work with them as part of BBVA. Finding and acquiring a high-quality startup such as Openpay speaks to the opportunities (particularly, in terms of acquisitions – only one tool) available for digital transformation in Latin America. I’d like to use this post to share some general opinions about digital innovation and the ensuing business transformations that corporations are going through as well as some insights about the Latin American startup scene.

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  • May 12, 2016

    Comentarios complementarios a mi entrevista en CNN

    tropicalgringo cnn
    El viernes pasado, tuve la oportunidad de conversar con Mario Gonzalez durante una entrevista en CNN en Español sobre la innovacion digital en la banca.  Por limitaciones de tiempo no pude entrar mucho en detalle con mis respuestas y voy hacerlo mejor con este post. Antes de eso, acá incluyo la entrevista:

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    2 Comments / Español, General /

  • November 23, 2015

    Digital Innovation in Latin America

    TropicalGringo Speaker

    Note: After a great comment from a reader (see below), I’ve re-written (or added some ideas) to this post.  Thanks to one and all who push me to improve the quality of what I communicate in this blog!

    As I’ve written previously, I define digital innovation as the ability to create innovative new business model enabled by new digital tools. When I think of the state of digital innovation in Latin America, the first thing that comes to mind is untapped opportunities.

    The big question is whether some of these untapped opportunities will be taken advantage of by startups, by big  companies or both (e.g., acquisitions, etc.).  The reality is that, with a plethora of new digital tools available, anywhere there are complex problems, there are usually new ways to solve these.  What’s required are talented entrepreneurs passionate about treading untrodden territory.

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    4 Comments / English, General /
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