Leveraging the Power Trio of Serving Large Commercial Clients
The landscape of corporate banking is transforming, marked by intensifying competition, evolving client expectations, and dynamic market conditions. This challenging yet opportune environment for financial institutions (FIs) was a central theme at Q2’s CONNECT 25 customer conference.
Competition in this segment comes not only from other FIs, but also from fintechs as corporate customers are demonstrating a willingness to switch providers more easily than before. But the market is also ripe for FIs that can meet the challenges of big companies. Globally, about $200 billion is spent annually on treasury management services, with about $20 billion spent in the U.S. alone. This number is expected to grow, driven by complex needs related to fraud detection and mitigation, as well as innovation around new payment rails.
Although the definition of a large commercial or corporate client can vary by FI, often tied to factors like annual sales (such as more than $100 million), their expectations are becoming more sophisticated across the board.
Success in this segment increasingly hinges on effectively leveraging a power trio: the right digital solutions, more hands-on treasury management, and informed commercial relationship pricing. As Christine Barry, head of product at Datos Insights, put it, "Good enough is no longer good enough."
The Right Digital Solutions
Excellent digital solutions—starting with a robust digital banking platform—have been table stakes to win corporate relationships for decades. But corporate customers today are actively seeking more, including integration that helps them operate more efficiently, payments with a view that provide additional information efficiently, and effective servicing where their bank officer acts as an advisor. Beyond that, they expect their FI to provide the digital ecosystem to help them stave off fraud.
ERP Integration
Many corporate customers are looking to handle most of their day-to-day work directly within their ERP/accounting systems, making integration crucial. Barry pointed out that corporate customers are increasingly going to fintechs for capabilities like integrated receivables, payments, and payroll, but their preference is always to get it from their bank because they trust their bank more.
“I think most important is being where your customers are. Understanding that, especially as they get larger, they're going to have multiple relationships with different banks. They're going to be using ERP systems, so that integration with the systems … having that integration is really important.," she said.
Q2 provides that integration through Direct ERP, which is part of the Q2 Direct Data Services product set. Direct Data Services offers FIs the opportunity to build stronger bonds with commercial customers by automating the delivery and receipt of payment files via Secure File Transfer Protocol (SFTP) or Application Programming Interface (API). Integration for Direct ERP into the Q2 Digital Banking Platform is enabled via connection partners such as Koxa and Ninth Wave, who provide access to key ERP systems including NetSuite, Workday, Sage Intacct, Microsoft Dynamics Business Central, QuickBooks, and Xero, among others.
The Information Reporting module in Direct Data Services supports various formats like BAI and Swift, with an upgrade planned for 2026 to offer greater flexibility. For corporate customers that need to get data into legacy or homegrown systems that require file-based integration, Direct Account Recon allows them to create custom reports in specific formats (BAI, ISO, Swift) and schedule them for delivery via FTP server.
Chad Parramore, executive director and head of commercialization for Synovus, spoke about his bank’s approach with Direct Data Services.
“We heard it directly from our customers. We get it from partners like Datos: Clients want to buy from their banks, not from fintechs. So this type of partnership—whether it’s direct payments or recon—clients want that ease of use, that direct connection to their bank,” he said. “It’s also easier for them. We all know clients’ tech resources are very, very scarce out in the marketplace, so our ability to integrate in a very ease-of-use, light type of method for that customer base is very important.”
Partnering With Fintechs
To help FIs quickly innovate and respond to corporate customer demands, Q2 Innovation Studio enables banks and credit unions to build, extend, and integrate new capabilities using robust developer tools and documentation. Innovation Studio offers prebuilt integrations with more than 150 fintech solutions, enhancing the offerings of banking-adjacent categories.
Layered Fraud Defenses
Q2’s layered approach to fighting fraud includes digital protection, risk management, and security solutions. Through Q2’s positive pay solution, FIs can empower corporate customers to monitor transactions at the account level to stop ACH and check fraud before it happens.
Q2 fraud solutions combine behavioral data and machine learning to detect anomalies and trigger real-time alerts, enhancing the detection of fraud. Through a partnership with Alloy, Q2 provides a centralized identity decision engine for fraud detection and prevention against risks such as account takeover and email compromise.
More Hands-On Treasury Management
Corporate teams need to get their cash position moment-to-moment to make payments, pay bills, and make investments appropriately, and they need constant access to information across all their accounts from all their financial institutions. The ability to access and integrate this data, whether through manual downloading and modification for legacy systems or automated feeds for modern ones, is paramount.
Unlocking Profitability
For the FI, treasury management plays a critical role in unlocking profitability and driving cross-sell opportunities with corporate customers. Q2 PrecisionLender data shows that relationships including credit, deposits, and treasury management have a 55% higher return on equity (17.2%) compared to credit-only relationships (11.1%) or even credit plus deposits. Furthermore, treasury relationships tend to be stickier, compounding their lifetime value.
The Q2 Digital Banking Platform supports the features most in-demand among corporates, such as high-volume wires (handling up to 1,000 wires in real time or 3,000 wires per batch). More importantly, solutions like the large-volume wire capability are built with workflows that facilitate approval, status checks, and troubleshooting directly within the platform, addressing a key day-to-day problem for corporate teams.
Q2 Instant Payments Manager takes advantage of the new instant payments rails to integrate a conversational nature into instant payments, allowing users to see interactions and conversations related to a payment together, aiding in research and providing information that can be easily taken into ERP/accounting systems.
The Shifting Relationship Manager Role
Addressing the challenges in treasury management goes beyond just providing features. FIs need to provide advice on what products and services align with a corporate customer’s strategic growth goals. The shift toward a more tech-integrated environment for corporates requires banking relationship managers to become more strategic advisors. A CGI and Global Treasurer survey of corporate clients found that being a strategic advisor was the second most important factor for large corporate customers when evaluating their relationship manager at their financial institution.
To properly fill this role of strategic advisor, FIs need a 360-degree view of the client relationship, not one siloed view for the relationship manager and another siloed view for the treasury team. Q2 Premium Treasury Pricing replaces conventional pro forma tools to bring treasury and deposit teams into the conversation when it matters most—in the beginning. It positions FIs to win and grow the entire commercial banking relationship by introducing a collaborative approach to deal structuring that ultimately drives primacy, profitability, and efficiency.
Todd Klapprodt, senior product manager at Q2, noted the value that a more comprehensive relationship brings. “It’s those treasury customers that are incredibly valuable. Once you have the treasury business, it’s hard to unseat them.”
Informed Commercial Relationship Pricing
The shifting market over the past several years has put a new perspective on relationship pricing. Sophisticated clients have become increasingly demanding and fee-conscious. Credit spreads can be thin, making cross-sell of treasury and other services essential for profitability. Too many FIs continue to rely on spreadsheets to inform pricing, which is manual, disjointed, and labor-intensive.
Q2 PrecisionLender, along with Premium Treasury Pricing, is designed to help FIs have more informed deal structuring. PrecisionLender features Andi, the virtual insights coach that provides in-the-moment insights and guidance while deals are being structured. Andi is configurable and can surface insights based on playbook resources, analytics, market data, and comparable internal deals to help bankers make better, more informed pricing decisions and improve profitability.
Equipped for Success
To win and grow relationships with large corporate businesses, FIs must equip themselves with the right digital solutions, embrace the critical role of treasury management, and implement informed commercial relationship pricing. These three elements work in concert, allowing banks to meet sophisticated client needs, drive efficiency for both parties, and unlock significant profitability. By providing sophisticated digital capabilities, banks can serve as essential partners integrated into their clients' operations. By focusing on treasury management as a core value driver and a relationship anchor, banks can build stickier, more profitable relationships. And by leveraging informed pricing strategies and tools, banks can ensure they are competing effectively, optimizing deal outcomes, and empowering their teams.
Robert Noon, director of treasury services for Atlantic Union Bank, shared some sound advice with FIs looking to grow their corporate portfolio.
“It's going to take time to penetrate these new clients, potential prospects, existing clients … . You've got to earn their respect. … Be patient. This whole industry didn't evolve in a year. It's been 30 years in the making. Just be patient.”