Citi chief executive Jane Fraser often cites it as the crown jewel of the bank’s array of global services. For Surendra Rosha, co-chief executive of HSBC Asia Pacific, it is one of three areas of finance that will define the bank’s success in the region. And for Rajesh Mehta, Citi’s Asia Pacific head of treasury and trade solutions, it constitutes the “financial rails on which all commercial activities are conducted.”
They are all talking about transaction banking.
For years this sprawling area of banking, spanning everything from trade finance and cash management to global payments, ground along perfectly happy, dispensing services demanded by corporates of all sizes to manage their day-to-day needs. For banks, it was a reliable generator of steady income. Think of it as the unheralded and hard-working football player ignored by the media but loved by fans.
Things were already changing by 2020 and then Covid happened.
