BBVA launches conversational banking inside ChatGPT for Italy and Germany. With 200M monthly finance queries on the platform, banks face a distribution shift that puts app ownership at risk.
BBVA launched a conversational banking app inside ChatGPT for users in Italy and Germany. Customers can ask about account conditions, compare card types, and explore savings products and receive direct links to product pages without leaving the assistant. The move signals a shift: banks may no longer own the front-end of the customer relationship as conversational platforms become the primary entry point.
The app handles informational queries in natural language. No separate login and no navigation to a bank-owned interface. The banking experience starts inside the chat.
Murat Kalkan, global head of digital banks at BBVA, described the integration as the start of a new chapter where AI becomes part of everyday banking.
“The integration marks the start of a new chapter where AI becomes part of everyday banking.”
The current version is built for product discovery. BBVA expects it to evolve into a digital companion that helps customers navigate financial decisions conversationally over time.
The logic behind the move is straightforward. ChatGPT has become one of the primary channels through which people seek information online, BBVA noted. Building a presence inside it is less about technology and more about distribution. A bank that shows up where a customer is already asking questions does not need to convince them to open a separate app first.
BBVA has already deployed ChatGPT Enterprise to more than 11,000 employees, with plans to expand to 120,000 staff globally. During the initial rollout, 80% of participants accessed the assistant daily and reported saving an average of three hours per week on routine tasks.
That internal adoption rate provides a proof-of-concept for the conversational interface. If employees trust it for work, the bank can argue customers will trust it for banking questions.
The traditional banking app model requires acquisition cost: ads, referrals or branch visits to convince a customer to download and log in. A conversational interface living inside ChatGPT bypasses that expense. The customer comes to the assistant for a different reason and finds a banking capability available on demand.
The addressable audience is already there. More than 200 million people ask ChatGPT questions about personal finance every month. That number is what banks are watching. A conversational interface that sits between a customer and their financial decisions is not neutral infrastructure. It is a relationship layer. The institution that owns that layer – whether a bank, an AI company or a platform – owns the first point of contact for every financial question a customer asks.
The simple read: BBVA created a chatbot. The better market read: BBVA is pre-positioning for a world where the front-end of banking moves away from proprietary apps and into conversational platforms.
The risk is that ChatGPT itself becomes the front-end becomes the front-end for all financial questions. OpenAI already lets Pro users connect financial accounts across more than 12,000 institutions through Plaid and receive answers grounded in their actual spending and cash flow. The platform is building its own financial layer.
BBVA is choosing to be inside that layer rather than fight it. That is a bet on distribution over ownership of the interface.
PYMNTS Intelligence found that 37% of power AI users now report using native AI platforms as their primary tool for managing finances and banking. Among mainstream users, that share doubled in a single month. Dedicated AI platforms are gaining ground specifically in finance and banking as a category, while embedded tools inside merchant and bank apps are losing relative standing.
Those numbers create urgency for every bank with a retail franchise. If customers start treating ChatGPT as their primary financial advisor, the bank's proprietary app becomes a back-office utility. BBVA is placing a bet that being present inside the assistant is worth more than fighting for app installs.
BBVA is not alone in watching where the customer relationship is moving. ChatGPT's Plaid integration already covers 12,000 financial institutions, effectively creating a universal read-access layer for any bank that connects. The platform is becoming the de facto aggregator.
The broader sector read is about which banks copy the BBVA playbook and which build their own AI assistants. Banks that launch proprietary conversational tools risk low adoption if customers do not come to their apps. Banks that embed inside third-party platforms risk losing the relationship.
Publicis announced a $2 billion deal for LiveRamp to create smarter AI agents, signaling that the advertising and data industry also sees the distribution opportunity. Revolut launched a physical crypto debit card amid rising transaction volume, another example of financial services expanding into non-traditional interfaces.
Banks betting on ChatGPT face three risks:
The 200 million monthly finance queries on ChatGPT are the market signal. Banks that treat that number as noise will wake up to a customer base that has already switched its primary interface. BBVA is betting that presence inside the assistant is the only way to stay relevant in a conversational-first banking world.
AlphaScala's coverage rates BBVA at 68/100 (Moderate) in the Financial Services sector. The score reflects the bank's positioning on digital adoption – the ChatGPT move is a forward-looking distribution bet. The rating also captures execution risk: betting on a third-party platform for customer acquisition leaves the bank exposed to OpenAI's strategic priorities.
For analysts tracking the banking sector, the BBVA move is a concrete data point on how distribution strategy is evolving. The BBVA stock page includes the full profile, Alpha Score and sector context. The stock market analysis hub covers broader sector shifts. The next six months will show whether the playbook gets copied or abandoned.
Prepared with AlphaScala research tooling and grounded in primary market data: live prices, fundamentals, SEC filings, hedge-fund holdings, and insider activity. Each story is checked against AlphaScala publishing rules before release. Educational coverage, not personalized advice.