The Spanish bank says new credit card applications went up by 80%, current account opening by 20% and sales of investment funds soared by 50%, following the release of the re-designed app.

Other key figures included a doubling of sales in pension plans, health insurance and home insurance, while car insurance take up almost tripled as did people carrying out mortgage simulations.

The new app was built using Design Thinking principles and BBVA’s now central Agile methodology, in which design, engineering and business development teams work together in small groups, with short delivery timescales, and agreed actions. Customer focus groups were also convened to provide ongoing feedback during the design phase.

The bank says just 15 people produced the new app, from the front end design - what the customer sees ‘above the glass’ - to the back end development, pathways, functionality integration and capabilities.

The big changes included a new dashboard, new tab bars, swipe tools enabling new product and service access and shortcuts to contextual actions. The app also includes a personalised catalogue of relevant products specific to each customer highlighted by a simple '+' symbol.

BBVA´s head of design, Marga Barrera, says the learnings from the project will be applied across the group and to the creation of new products in other departments.

“It’s the fastest way to create at speed and it ensures we design with the customer at the heart of it," she says. “As we roll out more and more services, insights, products and content going forwards, we now have processes in place to deliver excellent results in the kind of short time lines you expect from the start-up sector.”