BBVA in Switzerland has sponsored, together with 21shares and EY, the RFS Blockchain Forum. The conference, organised by Redesigning Financial Services AG, took place on the 29th of March in Zurich and gathered experts from the Swiss financial sector with the aim of exploring the opportunities arising from the expanding digital economy and DeFi.

Digital assets, tokenisation, decentralised finance: the world of blockchain is making great strides, accelerating the transformation of the financial industry. This conference aimed to bridge the gap between both worlds and explore all the possible implications of this new economy. 

Alfonso Gómez, CEO of BBVA in Switzerland, participated in the roundtable with other representatives of financial institutions such as Julius Baer, Maerki Baumann and Crypto Finance, to discuss the challenges that banks are facing in this environment and why it is necessary to establish a Blockchain strategy. 

“The implementation of blockchain technology in traditional banking still presents great challenges that we must overcome. One of the most important is education, which demands a collective effort to integrate this new system into the bank’s DNA. In other words, we need to ensure that all the different areas of the entity, from the risk or legal department to the commercial department, converge into compatible systems able to integrate these new requirements into the existing processes and operations”, said Alfonso Gómez.

They also highlighted the need to establish a legal framework to regulate the use cases and impact of the adoption of digital assets, encouraging Switzerland to become a leading country in the worldwide introduction of crypto-assets.

BBVA has not ignored the enormous potential of the Blockchain to transform and improve its business. “We are facing one of the biggest and most exciting technological changes of our era, and its implementation presents many obstacles that will require close collaboration between financial regulators, financial institutions and technological partners” concluded Alfonso Gómez.