Awards for Excellence 2017
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Understanding the client’s business and needs is essential for banks in transaction services. But Western Europe’s best bank for transaction services, Bank of America Merrill Lynch, demonstrates a profound knowledge of the changing role of the corporate treasurer.
What made its pitch noteworthy was how the bank has completely overhauled its approach to working with its clients. Recognizing how customers in the region were missing out on opportunities in their working-capital management strategy, the bank’s Western Europe team began to assess in detail individual RFPs (requests for proposals) to work out where the customer could be benefit from a different approach to their business and make suggestions accordingly.
In some cases, the bank could identify efficiencies or cost-saving measures the treasurers themselves had not recognized.
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Due to how the operation is structured, keeping working capital, supply-chain finance and corporate cards in the same business, the teams were able to work together on developing a tailored working-capital plan for each company. This approach also meant the bank was able to provide a pricing structure that had been developed in collaboration with each of the product groups, rather than in their individual silos. The result was a more-tailored pricing structure, to the benefit of the customer and the services they were using.
Undergoing such a change also meant having to work on re-educating members of staff in the new operational standards.
Client response to the strategy has been very positive, with the bank noting it has won a number of mandates from the changes, so much so that the restructuring has been rolled out internationally as part of the bank’s transaction business strategy.
There have also been other innovations. In 2016, BAML established a service team in Dublin to assist its Ireland-based clients. Swiss operations were also expanded when it became a direct clearer in the country.
