Banks not playing to their edge: report

DESPITE pressures from tougher regulations, most banks lack urgency in building thoughtful strategies around the use of the capital, a recent report co-written by Oliver Wyman and Morgan Stanley suggested.

Regulation has created a polarising effect on corporate expenditure for banking needs, as companies pay for expertise from banks with global scale, as well as specialists, and squeeze the rest. The latter can include regional multi-service banks such as Singapore lenders.

This comes as global banking revenue is estimated in the report to hit about US$250 billion within the next year or so, at its best, translating to a lift of about 5 per cent from 2013.

In particular, the report raises the question on the use of cross-selling - a strategy that was supposed to bear fr…