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Awards / Treasury & Capital Markets
The Asset Awards: Know your client, period
Revealing this year’s star transaction bankers that have become partners to their clients over the past year
The Asset 19 Jun 2020

FROM Covid-19 to geopolitical tensions, businesses are operating in a period of heightened uncertainty. The role of a trusted adviser who understands the treasury needs of clients has gained in importance, especially in smoothing out unexpected challenges from this unprecedented health emergency.

After months of engaging with the treasury departments of companies across the Asia-Pacific, The Asset’s board of editors was able to distill several important characteristics clients would like to see from their transaction bankers. Top of the list is being aware of, and understanding of their business needs.

Specifically, corporate clients The Asset spoke with cite this trait as vital, even in the decision to award mandates. It also goes without saying that a banker’s knowledge of the markets these clients operate in, the ability to interpret new regulations, such as on capital controls, as well as market trends including foreign currency fluctuations and their impact on the balance sheet, are likewise key traits.

Like everywhere else, digitalization is playing a greater role in strategic decision making within companies. This includes the corporate treasury departments, which are expected to consider new ways of cost-saving, and reducing manual processes.

An ideal transaction banker should be one who is able to evaluate the pain points of a particular client and craft a solution that hopefully is also scalable for the bank for the benefit of other clients. For example, several institutions have leveraged APIs (application programming interfaces) to be able to receive and send transaction messages between a company and a bank in real-time, positively impacting sectors such as insurance.

Moreover, a proactive transaction banker should be able to push the boundaries of what is achievable and use curiosity to forge partnerships with external third parties such as financial technology firms, in hopes of creating an outcome for clients and improved experience.

Aside from technological developments and innovation, a model transaction banker should be one that can effectively communicate with clients and offer transparent views on how to reshape a company’s corporate treasury. Ensuring the smooth implementation of a new project or treasury setup through consistent engagement, for instance, can be the difference between a happy treasurer or CFO to one that will be entertaining other providers before too long.

The positive characteristics mentioned above are some of the qualities found in the individual winners of this year’s The Asset Triple A Treasury, Trade, SSC, and Risk Awards 2020 - Industry Leadership Awards.

To see the list of Industry Leadership Awardees, please click here.

To learn more about these awards, please click here.

For more information about receiving the awards, please contact [email protected]

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