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In recent times, corporations from all over the world have begun reevaluating their relationships with their bank. Furthermore, a considerable number have reported an increased dissatisfaction. Their demands from banks have been steadily growing. However, banks themselves have not stepped up to the challenge by embracing new corporate banking products.
Many would argue that some of the methods and processes used today by banks are quite archaic. Thus, this results in inefficiencies that can hamper the operations of corporates. To address this, many banks have started to reassess themselves for pain points in areas their corporate partners are most concerned about.
So, it is interesting to see the general consensus of what corporates are looking for when they choose their banks.
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Payments and Cash Management Services
As a basic necessity, corporate businesses look at how capable banks are in processing their payments and managing their cash flows. It is invaluable to corporates that they follow strict timelines especially on their accounting deliverables. So, they require that their bank will not pose any hindrances to their schedules.
Corporates want banks that they can trust for sending and receiving payments safely and promptly. Timely payments and transactions are not only a matter of efficiency for corporates, but they are a reflection of their image as a company to their clients.
Cash management, on the other hand, is an internal service that companies need to assess the flow of their funds and budgets. Corporates can do this themselves. However, they would often prefer to enlist the financial expertise of banks to handle the task for them. This entails optimizing the delivery to and reception of funds from corporate clients for effective, time-saving operations.
Quite a number of corporates have cited this as a reason for reassessing their current bank relationships. Different banks offer different methods for cash management. But, corporates would much prefer having options for them to decide how they would like their cash managed, rather than having no say in how their choice of bank decides to accomplish this for them.
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Convenience and Accessibility to Bank
Banking services these days can be very diverse. However, these can also be very complex and sometimes messy for corporates to go through. While this is indicative of their capabilities as a service provider, corporates often do have neither the time nor the patience to discuss the intricacies of a bank’s services with a bank representative, or to rummage through dozens of pages on a website.
Ideally, corporates today would want to have a bank’s services and their company balance all organized on a single page. It is more efficient to have everything accessible in one place with navigation required. This is so especially since modern corporate software also has company matters presented this way on dashboards.
In addition to this, corporates would greatly appreciate the convenience of banks that can perform their services in real-time. A huge gripe that has tainted their relationships with current partners is the time that any financial request tends to take or the days necessary to process any kind of transaction.
This ties into other services such as company balances. Corporates would prefer to have access to balances at any time of the day. Unfortunately, even this takes time to process before they can have access. Some corporates have mentioned that not enough bank processes are automated, and are still subject to on-premises transactions with pen and paper.
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Capacity for Banking Innovations
An increasing number of corporates now hold the opinion that banks are remaining too conservative. Little has changed in terms of what banks provide and how they go about delivering their products, leading only to what appear to be incremental advancements in the field of banking for their clients.
However, the rising trend of open banking has created an avenue for dramatic growth in what banks can do for clients. Because of this, corporates have seen this as a test for their bank relationships, particularly of how willing their current banks are towards adopting such drastic changes. Banks that do decide to pursue opening will appear more attractive due to the promise of great improvements.
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Furthermore, many corporates, who themselves have mostly integrated software solutions into all segments of their operations, have begun to believe that this insistence on traditional, on-paper bureaucracies are the primary reason for long processing times and banking service inconveniences.
Banks that are open to improving the digitalization of their operations and developing better software interfaces show they’re geared towards innovating the banking industry. This only serves to benefit their client relationships. Consequently, corporates would not mind being first in line to benefit from new services from their banks.
Perhaps the idea is for banks to change their mindset towards a more progressive approach to their industry. A transition towards banking that utilizes technology a lot more only serves to benefit clients. Furthermore, the banks themselves with far more streamlined operations, address the main considerations of corporates when choosing their banks.