As head of online and mobile banking at BBVA Compass, Alex Carriles is always thinking of ways to increase customer interaction via digital channels by catering to an existing customer need, instead of creating a new one.
This is what led to the addition of its latest mobile banking feature, a financial tool that lets consumers track and manage budgets of all their bank accounts, including those with other banks.
“We realize our customers have other accounts outside BBVA,” Carriles told Bank Innovation. “We don’t want relationships with our customers to stop at us, we want to be involved in their entire financial lives. That’s why we have this tool that allows you to connect all your accounts and get a full picture of your finances.”
The tool, which went live as of Wednesday this week, allows users to set auto pay and bill pay, among other features.
“If you have a mortgage from company C and you want to pay it off with your account from BBVA account, or a credit card from bank C you can do it from your BBVA account, all within the app” Carriles said.
The financial management tool was created in partnership with financial data aggregator, MX.
Other features of this tool include spending tracking, budgeting, setting alerts for balance and upcoming bills, linking accounts and setting saving goals.
“The design is pretty cool,” Carriles said. “You see your spending as bubbles, and the color of these bubbles change with your habits. For example, if you are spending a lot of your funds on food, then that bubble will turn red and get bigger to tell you that.”
To provide such insight on spending habits, having accurate spend categorization is crucial, Carriles said. So for this, BBVA has connected to MX through its APIs to separate a user’s transaction data into distinct categories.
“To be effective this has to be done in realtime,” he said. “The MX engine will categorize a user’s spending into different subjects and subsects, like food, clothing, etc. But also, the customer will be given the option to self-categorize. So, if your transaction shows you’ve shopped at Walmart, for instance, you can add the specific category of that purchase.”

Not surprisingly, with over 15 million active MAU (for BBVA globally), the mobile app is a top priority for BBVA Compass. “We are trying to add new features often,” Carriles said.
This year alone, BBVA Compass has added voice navigation, card activation, international transfers, debit and credit card replacement requests, and the “green button,” which allows users to open a new account or apply for a personal loan through the homepage of the mobile app.
In a previous interview with Bank Innovation, BBVA Compass head of business development José “Pepe” Olalla, said that the bank plans to integrate with P2P app Zelle “sometime soon.”
Based in Houston, Texas, BBVA Compass is the U.S. arm of Spanish bank BBVA SA.






