Corporate Banking Reimagined
Transaction banking remains one of the largest and most resilient value pools in global finance. According to McKinsey, trade finance, wholesale payments and liquidity services collectively generate ~US$1.3 trillion in annual revenue, representing nearly half of wholesale banking income.
At the same time, the digital frontier of corporate banking is expanding rapidly. The global Corporate Digital Banking market is forecast to grow from US$6.85 billion in 2024 to US$28.16 billion by 2032, driven by demand for real-time cash management, cloud-native treasury, digital trade and API-first corporate services.
These twin signals - a large, stable revenue base and a rapidly accelerating digital growth curve - underscore a structural shift. Corporate banking is being reshaped by AI, tokenized money, interoperability mandates, quantum-safe security, and sustainability-linked finance, while Big Tech, ERPs and fintech platforms increasingly influence client engagement and workflow orchestration. For banks, this marks a decisive inflection point: corporate banking must evolve from a traditional product supplier into an intelligent, interoperable, platform-based orchestrator of enterprise value.
Author - Rajashekara V. Maiya
Vice President and Global Head - Business Consulting, Infosys Finacle
AI & Agentic Intelligence – From Efficiency to Autonomous Corporate Operations
AI is moving beyond pilots into operational control rooms. Gartner suggests that agentic AI will autonomously handle ~15% of daily business decisions and be embedded in ~33% of enterprise software by 2028. Banks are applying agentic AI and AI copilots for fraud detection, reconciliation, and transaction surveillance; leading vendor sessions also illustrated how AI copilots can support transaction operations and decisioning in real time. These practical deployments show AI moving into mission-critical workflows rather than remaining a point solution.
For corporate banking the imperative is twofold: industrialize AI with governance, and design runbooks for agentic workflows. McKinsey further highlights that high-impact banking workflows such as liquidity management, cross-border routing, AML triage, and credit decisioning must incorporate model-risk governance, explainability, and operational checkpoints as they scale into production environments. As agentic systems begin to autonomously execute treasury rebalancing, match invoices, validate trade documents, and manage exceptions, banks must design agentic runbooks with strict SLAs, fallback logic, embedded explainability, and oversight layers that ensure both speed and accountability.
Case in Point: HSBC now runs 600+ AI use cases in production, applying advanced models across fraud detection, cyber security, transaction monitoring, customer servicing, and risk assessment. In Corporate and Institutional Banking, HSBC has deployed a generative-AI assistant that supports 3 million+ client interactions annually, accelerating complex servicing workflows and improving response quality — with 88% of clients rating the bank “easy to deal with.
Regulated Digital Assets – The New Foundation of Corporate Treasury
Regulated digital assets are moving from pilots to core infrastructure for corporate liquidity and settlement. SWIFT is building a blockchain-based ledger with over 30 global banks to enable 24/7 real-time cross-border payments and tokenized value transfers, leveraging smart contracts for compliance and interoperability. Meanwhile, BIS Project Agorá brings together seven central banks and 40+ private firms to integrate tokenized commercial bank deposits with tokenized central bank money, aiming to reduce friction and improve settlement efficiency in correspondent banking networks. These initiatives, backed by regulatory engagement, signal that tokenized deposits and programmable money are becoming foundational to corporate treasury.
For treasurers, tokenized money unlocks real-time liquidity orchestration, programmable sweeping, and near-instant settlement. J.P. Morgan’s Kinexys platform has piloted JPMD, a permissioned USD deposit token enabling on-chain transfers and interest-bearing deposits. HSBC, Citi, and OCBC are also advancing tokenization for deposits and cash instruments. These developments promise greater liquidity access, reduced pre-funding, and 24/7 settlement across jurisdictions. As regulatory clarity strengthens, digital assets will shift treasury operations from batch-based cycles to always-on, programmable money management.
Michael Chan, CEO of Zand Bank, shares how the bank bridges TradFi and DeFi, its vision for the future, and the significant steps taken to transform from a fintech digital bank to an AI-driven digital bank. He highlights advancements in digital custody management, Zand’s competitive edge, and the strategic partnership with Infosys Finacle.
Composability & Interoperability – The Architecture of Real-Time Corporate Banking
Composability and interoperability are emerging as foundational principles for modern corporate banking, driven by global standards like ISO 20022 and the shift to API-first architectures. ISO 20022 is fast becoming the universal messaging standard for high-value and cross-border flows. According to SWIFT’s migration roadmap, by late 2025, 90% of global cross-border messages will be ISO 20022-native, embedding richer, structured data that improves reconciliation, compliance, and analytics.
At the same time, corporate treasurers are accelerating adoption of API-driven connectivity to enable real-time cash visibility, multi-bank integration, automated transaction initiation, and seamless ERP/TMS connectivity. According to a survey, corporate clients are prioritizing API capabilities for multi-currency management, cross-border flows, and instant liquidity insights, with 78% reporting increased multi-currency cross-border activity, underscoring the need for interoperable, API-native platforms. Industry reports also show that open banking APIs are rapidly becoming the default mechanism for treasury connectivity, with banks rebuilding their corporate platforms around modular, cloud-enabled services to support embedded banking and dynamic compliance.
RBC Clear by RBC Capital Markets, US
Royal Bank of Canada envisioned its Next-gen cash management platform offering seamless onboarding, transparent payments, real-time visibility, and a unified data store, boosting RBC’s US expansion strategy.
Quantum-Safe Corporate Banking – Securing the Next Decade of Digital Infrastructure
Quantum computing has moved from futuristic concept to operational risk. The U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has formally selected the first set of post-quantum cryptography (PQC) algorithms, including CRYSTALS-Kyber and CRYSTALS-Dilithium, marking the beginning of an industry-wide transition to quantum-resistant security standards.
At the same time, global regulators are signalling urgency. The World Economic Forum warns that corporate data especially long-lived financial records and encrypted communications is at significant “harvest now, decrypt later” risk as adversaries capture encrypted data today to decrypt once quantum capabilities mature.
ESG, Sustainable Finance & Digital Inclusion – The Corporate Imperatives
Data from sustainable finance market trackers show that global sustainable financing, including ESG-linked bonds, green loans and sustainability-linked loans, has risen to the trillions of dollars, with sustainable loan volumes continuing to expand each year.
Regulatory pressure is accelerating this shift. The EU Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) and ISSB standards are pushing companies to adopt digitally verifiable, data-rich ESG reporting, making ESG a compliance requirement rather than a voluntary disclosure.
The Road Ahead: Continuous Modernization Powered by Composable Corporate Platforms
The next decade of corporate banking will not be shaped by one-off transformation programs but by continuous modernization, an operating model where platforms evolve in real time alongside markets, regulations, and enterprise expectations. Corporate banking is moving toward a world defined by composability at the architectural layer, AI-native intelligence across workflows, interoperable liquidity and settlement networks that span real-time and tokenized rails, and quantum-safe infrastructure that protects future digital value chains. At the same time, sustainability is becoming embedded directly into treasury, trade, and cash-management journeys, reshaping how banks design processes, measure impact and engage clients.
In this environment, competitiveness will hinge on the ability to adapt, integrate and orchestrate at scale. Banks must operate like platforms, modular, data-rich, secure, and continuously improving, so they can plug into new networks, support agentic and autonomous operations. Thus, enable real-time global liquidity, and meet rising expectations for transparency, resilience, and sustainability. Institutions that embrace continuous modernization, underpinned by composable corporate platforms, will define the next era of enterprise value creation and ecosystem leadership.
References
- www.mckinsey.com
- www.globenewswire.com
- www.reuters.com
- How financial institutions can improve their governance of gen AI | McKinsey
- www.bis.org
- www.swift.com
- Kinexys Pilots First USD-Denominated Deposit Tokens
- Transforming HSBC with AI | HSBC and Digital
- www.wholesale.banking.societegenerale.com
- www.futurebank.tabinsights.com
- www.nist.gov
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