Bilbao Board of Trade

The Board of Trade was a merchants' institution in a city whose wealth came from iron ore, shipping and foreign trade, and it wanted local credit and a local currency of issue instead of depending on Madrid. The architects of the modern group came much later: Emilio de Ybarra chaired BBV and Francisco Gonzalez chaired Argentaria when the two agreed the 1999 merger, and both became co-chairmen of BBVA.

No individual is recorded as the founder of BBVA's oldest institution. Banco de Bilbao was created in 1857 after the Bilbao Board of Trade, the body representing the port city's merchants, promoted a bank that could issue banknotes and discount commercial bills. The bank financed Basque trade and industry for more than a century, merged with its local rival Banco de Vizcaya in 1988 to form BBV, and BBV merged with Argentaria in 1999 to create Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria. BBVA traces more than one hundred institutions through that line, which is why the group dates itself from 1857.