(14 February 2025 – Global) East & Partners Global Analyst Meeting Insights provides a valuable “peek behind the curtain” into powerful research, analysis and thought leadership thematics based on the “voice of treasurer” and “voice of the bank” for 2025 and beyond.
Treasurers Retail Banking Experiences Colouring Commercial Banking Expectations?
East & Partners research reveals a growing disconnect as a direct result of enhanced functionality in the retail bank not translating to the business bank.
This has direct ramifications for customer experience, creating significant friction and poor customer experience outcomes.
Which banks buck the trend? How often is a CFOs’ or treasurers’ business banking experience truly exceeded, met or fallen short of their experience as a personal banking customer? The consensus across the East team is “not very often”.
“Improving integration between often disparate business banking units is challenging enough for leading banks, let alone aligning customer experience objectives with the retail bank. A clear opportunity presents to get this right based the growing level of antagonism expressed by CFOs and treasurers” commented East & Partners Global Head of Markets Analysis, Martin Smith.
Rapidly Evolving Fintech Landscape
What companies do enterprises think of first in the area of FinTech? How much has this changed in the last ten years? More importantly, how much will this change in the coming year(s)?
In 2015 leading Fintech brands nominated by 981 treasurers and key decision makers market wide across Australia included Xero, OzForex (now OFX), HiFX, QuickBooks, Tyro, TransferWise (now Wise) and Hedgebook.
Notably, almost 1 in 2 enterprises failed to nominate any Fintech brands, ranging from 37% of Microbusinesses to 59% of Large Corporates.
Fast forward to 2025, what Fintech companies are now “front of mind”? Which brands have fallen by the wayside and why?
Given mind share is proven as the most powerful leading indicator of new relationship share growth, how do companies both generate greater first name brand recall and leverage this valuable advantage in the areas of Cash Management & Payments, Trade & Supply Chain Finance, FX, Asset Finance and Lending?
Trump Effect Wide Felt
While many corporates place simmering geopolitical tensions well down their priority list behind more pressing liquidity management and treasury innovation needs, it is impossible to ignore the sweeping impact newly elected President Trump’s tariff, anti-DEI and less climate conscious policies are having on global markets.
How will this impact well advanced “China Plus One” strategies? What role must banks play in guiding clients treasury management initiatives at a time of heightened uncertainty?
The large US banks have all pulled out of the Net Zero Banking Alliance since Trumps election win, with Australia’s Macquarie following suit last week. Does this leave space for the European and Asian banks to really own this market and drive it forward? There are still a lot of businesses out there globally, both big and small, sticking to their ESG goals, European and Asian banks are surely now better placed to win these mandates?
Tap into Treasurers Decision Making Processes
All of these complex, difficult to quantify questions are accessible from the next round of East on Demand.
Going to field at the end of each month, East’s bank and financial institution clients are directly asking CFOs and treasurers any question, in any market with a rapid turnaround on voice of the customer insights within two weeks.
Clients utilise the platform for quickfire thought leadership and marketing campaign proof points and support, product & service development/defining a new business case driving sales pipelines, forecast customer needs and much, much more.
November Analyst Meeting Insights
The previous November 2024 analyst meeting summary covered emerging markets payments challenges, Global Insight Report thematics invitation, ABGF Powering the Growth Economy release summary, PE Research and Outlook 2024.25.
East & Partners’ Outlook 2024/25 uncovers how corporates, middle market enterprises and small businesses are responding to changes in the global economy, from new technology to emerging trends for business banking. Download now.