Equity trading

Services to support
trading influenced a choice of bank,
and enhanced services could attract
a premium. The next most frequent
answer was equity research, although
there is clearly a difference between
‘use’ and be ‘willing to pay a premium
to receive’. Next comes a series of
straight forward banking services,
lending, advisory, foreign exchange
debt and treasury operations.
Using an investment bank strong in debt
or equity issuance is only important
to 40% of the asset/fund manager
respondents.

However, on a day-to-day
basis, new issues are not necessarily key
to their selection of an investment bank.
For corporate clients, of course,
products such as equity and debt
issuance, M&A, trade finance, and
corporate treasury are highly used.
The findings also reflect clients’ more
conservative approach to assets in
custody, including their desire to
protect unencumbered trading assets
and increased scrutiny of pledged
collateral.

It is worth noting that, during
this period, strong market returns
may to some extent have masked
investors’ usual primary demands for
lower costs and higher returns.