BBVA Compass, the US subsidiary of Spanish banking group BBVA, has just completed a $326 million technology upgrade of its core system to allow real-time and multi-channel transactions, the company announced in a press release yesterday.

Accenture’s Alnova Financial Solutions system was installed at all 716 of BBVA Compass’s US branches, which are located primarily in the sunbelt states.

The new system cuts down new account setup times from 40 minutes to 5 minutes, according to BBVA Compass, and reduces the time to market new products by 75%, largely because of time saved on coding across multiple platforms.

BBVA says that having all its banks on a single, modern system will result in better service for its customers, and allow customers to have equal access across all channels — online, mobile, phone, and branch.

BBVA has worked with Accenture to upgrade its core systems with Alnova in nine other countries.

“Technology transformations of this kind can have a major impact on the market position of banks –particularly in the U.S. where aging systems are prevalent,” said Juan Pedro Moreno, global managing director of banking at Accenture.

Will customers see tangible advantage from interacting with an updated core? They had better, with the kind of costs entailed in a core upgrade. Core conversions can last as long as 18 months, according to industry vendors.

Accenture posted net revenues of $27.9 billion for fiscal years 2012. BBVA Compass is based in Houston, Texas, and has $66 billion of assets.