Banking · Evidence brief · 5 min read
Corporate banking has a visibility problem
Many large companies still cannot confidently say whether they get good value from their banks. Costs are spread across thousands of charges, products and entities, and few treasury teams benchmark their principal arrangements regularly.
- Who this is for
- Group treasurers, CFOs and finance directors managing multiple banking relationships.
- Why it matters
- Banks understand the economics of a corporate relationship in detail. Without an equivalent view, a well-run treasury function can still leave value on the table.
Executive summary
- 1Bank fees and transaction charges are the hardest part of a relationship to benchmark.
- 2Visibility into what banks earn across the relationship is often partial.
- 3Benchmarking works best as continuous treasury practice, not a one-off RFP exercise.
What did treasurers say is hardest to benchmark?
At EuroFinance Barcelona 2026, Bankhawk surveyed corporate treasury and finance leaders about how they manage, measure and benchmark their banking relationships. In Bankhawk's survey, 80% of respondents identified bank fees and transaction charges as the hardest area to independently measure, followed by payment costs (53%) and FX rates and margins (27%).
Corporate banking costs are rarely one identifiable number. A large relationship spans transaction charges, account fees, payment costs, FX spreads, borrowing margins and deposit returns. Each may look small; across banks, entities and currencies they add up.
Do corporates know what their banks earn from them?
In the same Bankhawk survey, 73% of respondents reported only partial or no visibility into the total value their banks earn from the relationship, and 93% were not fully confident they could validate bank pricing against agreed terms and market benchmarks.
- What are our banks earning from us?
- Are we receiving the pricing we negotiated?
- How does our pricing compare with the market?
- Are we allocating our banking business efficiently?
How often should banking arrangements be benchmarked?
Among Bankhawk's survey respondents, 27% had independently benchmarked their principal banking arrangements within the previous 12 months. An arrangement that was competitive when negotiated does not necessarily remain so: pricing, volumes, technology and bank appetite all change.
What is the better objective?
The aim is not to squeeze every basis point or keep moving business between banks. It is a relationship in which both sides understand the economics, pricing is transparent and competitive, and business is allocated to deliver appropriate value to both parties.
Treasurers don't necessarily need more banking data. They need better intelligence from the data they already have.
A practical framework: from periodic review to continuous intelligence
- Verify the pricing actually applied against agreed terms.
- Understand the total economics of each banking relationship.
- Compare arrangements against relevant market benchmarks.
- Repeat on a regular cadence, so the question becomes: do we know today whether our arrangements are competitive?
Sources and methodology
- Bankhawk Corporate Banking Market Survey, EuroFinance Barcelona 2026. Methodology and sample size to be confirmed before publication.
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