Corporate banks ramp up data analytics to boost customer acquisition

They also plan to use data and analytics to assess productivity of relationship managers.

Corporate banking leaders are gearing up their data and analytics capabilities with a focus on client acquisition and relationship managers (RM) productivity.

McKinsey & Co. surveyed 57 corporate banking leaders in September 2022, where 21 indicated that they plan to use data analytics to assess customer potential and wallet sizing. 

“Although a bank’s analysis may identify a set of high-value use cases, selection of initial use cases should not rely solely on financial criteria. Banks can motivate the front line by inviting RMs to discuss priorities and select the three to five use cases they consider most important,” wrote McKinsey & Company partners Denis Francis and Imke Jacob, and associate partner Fadi Zoghby.

Environmental, social, and governance (ESG) use cases, including net-zero analytics, also are emerging as a priority, with 12 corporate banking leaders indicating such.

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The partners found that frontline-prioritized use cases included client acquisition (at a bank in China), trade finance cross-selling (a bank in the Middle East), client potential (a North American bank), and markets/foreign-exchange cross-selling (a European bank).

As corporate and commercial banks strive to serve increasingly complex client needs, data and analytics have become table stakes, Francis, Jacob, and Zoghby said.

“Initially, leading banks saw success from using data- and analytics-powered frontline tools to better serve their midsize business clients. They are now in the process of scaling this success across the rest of the corporate and commercial sector, from global multinationals and large domestic companies to small businesses,” the analysts noted.

The next generation of data- and analytics-powered frontline tools are expected to help RMs prioritize clients and opportunities, free up RMs to focus on value-adding activities and provide transparency on key information, including RMs’ performance, they added.