What is corporate banking?
Corporate banking is essentially banking that offers a range of financial services specific to corporations, from unique credit products, to treasury services, fixed asset requirement financing, employer and commercial services. In the world of corporate finance, loans and related credit products and services offered by commercial banks tend to generate the most profit for financial institutions. In addition, corporate banking offers expertise in capital markets and private equity building, as well as asset management, wealth management, and other investment banking services.
The growing trend in corporate and investment banking is digitization or bringing banking to clients through digital channels. This trend is driven by expectations of corporate clients who want to view their entire transaction history in real time, wherever they are, from their laptops, tablets, or phones.
The digitization of corporate banking has brought with it some significant challenges. Relationship management is relegated to the digital space, making traditional relationship-building activities between commercial banks and their clients more difficult. Corporate banking often involves numerous accounts and transactions in multiple countries, characterized by complicated processes involving such as trade finance and liquidity management, and compounded by the inherent complexity of corporate banking products.
Given the current landscape, it is imperative for corporate banking institutions to find digitally-enabled solutions that make navigating a complex financial eco-system seamless. To meet these challenges, banks are looking to Artificial Intelligence (AI), Block chain, and robotic process automation technologies, among others, to understand the transactional nature of corporate banking, and rise to the challenge of complex transactional execution across multiple channels.
Within the ever-changing digital landscape, corporate banking is finding great advantages in digitization.
- Offer richer customer experiences.Using Artificial Intelligence (AI) transforms corporate banking by drawing on data and analytics to power decision making. Analyzing customer engagement helps banks to identify opportunities for improvement and create targeted financial services for their corporate clients.
- Streamline corporate banking functions.Robotic Process Automation (RPA) uses software tools or bots to complete repetitive, labor-intensive tasks for increased efficiency performing a variety of banking functions. RPA can be used to complete more mundane tasks such as sending email communications, filling out forms, or checking loan eligibility, for example, work that can be done around the clock, leaving employees to face-to-face customer-related tasks.
- Enhance security, reduce costs and increase efficiencies. Blockchain technology is trending in digital banking due to it’s high-security, low-cost capabilities for executing financial transactions. That’s because blockchain technology takes the middleman out of the transaction process by eliminating the need for third party verification or a central bank so transactions are completed in hours rather than days or weeks.
- Decrease compliance risk.Poor user experience opens corporate banking transactions to federal government agency scrutiny. Dynamic rules engine automation gives corporate banking institutions the benefit of focusing on customers rather than regulations and requirements.