Collaborative Partnerships for Sustainability – Germany’s next step

by Dany Eder, Relationship & Sales Officer, BNY Mellon Treasury Services, Frankfurt

Since the global financial crisis hit, many German corporates have begun to re-evaluate their needs and as a result, their relationships with their financial services providers. In light of views expressed by senior treasury services professionals at a recent roundtable hosted by BNY Mellon in Germany, Dany Eder, the firm’s Vice President for Treasury Services in Frankfurt, discusses the importance of close bank/corporate relationships and the increased focus on stability within this relationship.

Banks ruled the roost until recently. They had become used to a bank-centric financial world in which they dictated the majority of trends and developments. But times have changed and, in the current risk-averse, liquidity-tight environment, it is the needs of the client that are the focal point of bank-corporate relationships. In this environment the new role of the bank is that of a solutions provider, and while this means that banks must continue to offer effective transactional financial solutions, they must do so with the best interest of the client in mind.

This was certainly the view of Ingrid Weißkopf, Product Manager at Commerzbank, who, speaking at BNY Mellon’s recent roundtable in Frankfurt, also believed that banks can and in many cases should, work together to provide corporates with the appropriate services.

“It must be remembered that there are various groups of clients with varying needs,” said Ingrid. “The interests of all these individual clients must be understood and distinguished. While it would be in some way idealistic to expect one bank to be able to concentrate equally on all the various groups, there is a lot of room for expansion in terms of partnerships between the banks. This would allow for an even greater client focus.”

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