It was launched by the old Banco de Bilbao in 1971
The voice of Galicia
writing / voice
21/02/2021 05:00 h
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Half a century has already passed since the 1971 Bank of Bilbao (today BBVA) issued the first credit card to be implemented in Spain as an alternative payment method to physical money. An alliance with BankAmericard made it possible. Seven years after that, the entity launched its first Visa card to, in 1986, also incorporate the Mastercard brand. In 2020, almost fifty years after the alliance with BankAmericard, the total number of cards issued by the entity amounts to 10 million units.
The first physical change to the card was the addition of numbers stamped into the plastic. Later, today BBVA launched a card with a magnetic band and in 2009 it incorporated the chip and PIN as security mechanisms. In 2011, the NFC technology, also known as contactless, to its physical version, which was later extended to the digital version in 2017 through payment with the mobile. At the beginning of 2020, the entity issued its first card made with recycled plastic. Months later, it also launched Aqua, its new family of cards, in recycled plastic, which does not have the card number or expiration date printed, with a dynamic verification code (CVV).
