Digitisation is at the heart of efficient and client-centric business models, and the banking sector is no exception. As treasurers and finance teams have embraced digital in their processes, they increasingly rely on their banks to deliver digital products and services. This becomes particularly complex for corporations operating globally, who need their solutions to support different local practices, payment, and regulatory requirements in each country in which they operate.
The shift to digital business models marks one of the most significant commercial trends of the past 20 years. For example, global sales conducted via B2B marketplaces are expected to quadruple from 1 trillion in 2020 to 4 trillion in 2025. All industries, whether healthcare, transport, energy, or manufacturing, are embracing a digital strategy. Banking, often associated with paper-based and manual processes and documents, is no exception, with digital platforms increasingly providing a model of client-centric, secure and agile banking solutions.
Client demand for end-to-end digital banking
Accelerated by the shift to remote working, clients increasingly require on-demand and real-time access to information, instant electronic transaction execution, and self-service query resolution. As such, the convenience, consistency, and security of banks’ digital services have become essential to ensuring an excellent client experience.
Clients need a digital platform that supports payment, collection, and trade requirements in each country and complies with regulatory requirements, including reporting, access, and fraud controls. These activities do not take place in isolation, so clients want to integrate their banking activities with their internal systems and processes with end-to-end digitisation. This includes account opening, user and signatory management, and transaction workflow management. Clients also need to be able to adapt the way they use banking platforms to meet their specific organisational, process, and organisational needs, without loss of consistency or the ability to benefit from future updates or new functionality seamlessly.
Shifting to global client-led solutions
This change represents a significant shift from bank-led, functionally-driven, often country or regionally-specific solutions to digital, global, and client-led solutions.
Treasurers, finance teams, and the IT colleagues that support them need to be able to configure their set-up, preferences, and processes themselves so that in-person interactions with banks can be targeted towards more strategic discussions where the bank’s expertise and the quality of the personal relationships are most valuable.
This is a vision, responsibility, and challenge that global banks such as Deutsche Bank are embracing as part of their commitment to making it easy for clients to do business with it. For international banks supporting clients in multiple jurisdictions around the world, delivering a consistent client experience using digital technologies is more complex than for local banks delivering solutions in an individual market, given the diversity of cultural, regulatory, and language requirements of global clients. The bank is building the principles of client control, excellent client experience, global consistency, and long-term relationships into its Autobahn portal, its digital multi-channel gateway for corporate and Institutional clients to access products and services.
For example, through the Corporate Bank Portal powered by Autobahn, clients have the ability to initiate and track services and queries digitally, globally, and instantly. Initially, the new portal supports cash management service requests, including status tracking and secure document sharing, but this is being extended across the full range of Deutsche Bank services.
Our clients appreciate the global control and visibility over banking services that the portal offers and the ability to simplify processes and controls and reduce issues and queries.
An integrated approach to global digital banking
This global approach to product design and delivery is essential for clients in different countries. A bank could choose to bring together local solutions through a single ‘front end’. However, this approach can result in fragmented processes, controls, and user experience. Instead, a globally consistent approach enables clients to benefit from the same user experience whilst taking into account specific local regulatory and payment needs in as many jurisdictions as possible.
Using a single, integrated platform that supports simpler processes and end-to-end digitisation also plays an important role in supporting clients in their cyber and fraud risk management strategies. Firstly, manual, paper-based processes are prone to error, omission, and fraud, which digital solutions with auditable processes, approvals, and user permissions can help overcome. Secondly, the use of multiple digital solutions for discrete tasks or in specific countries or regions makes a company vulnerable to cybercriminals and fraudsters who can exploit inconsistencies in processes, user rights, and training.
Digital banking is a key requirement for corporate and institutional clients around the world. Given the diversity and complexity of cultural and regulatory requirements in each country, the bespoke needs of each client, and the need to ensure the highest level of security overflows and data, only a few banks are in a position to meet the needs of organisations operating internationally. Key to this is an absolute commitment to security, a client-centric culture and strategy, deep expertise across all footprint markets, and a global approach to innovation and client relationships.
