(At the AFP Conference, I met with a senior management team from U.S. Bank who told me about their latest cash management initiative.)

We all know that banks desire long term 'sticky' relationships with their corporate clients, where they become partners in developing their business. The problem is that this can be expensive and not pay off in the short term. About a year ago Rich Erario set up a team of experienced (10-15 years/each) working capital consultants to offer free (nonchargeable - yes really) consultancy support for their corporate clients. His team is comprised of senior consultants, not product sales people.

This team of consultants at U.S. Bank has developed a proprietary methodology for analysing company's working capital practices:

1. U.S. Bank does a full diagnostic analysis of the company's payable and receivables process, which takes 1-1.5 hours (senior executives lose patience if it takes any longer)
2. they return 1-2 weeks later and present their (bank agnostic) findings, including the timeline and ROI on each recommendation.The consultants then act as the single point of contact for implementing the chosen solution. The whole process goes by the name "Working Capital DNA(R) Analysis."

Raison d'etre
When I questioned U.S. Bank on the return on this clearly useful but expensive team, their answers were that: 'we are building long term relationships and pushing products is not our objective.'  'We want to be considered a trusted advisor to our clients and as such objectively share our finding on not only the areas of opportunity, but also the processes which we discover to be working well.'

---

Refreshing. I hope U.S. Bank are able to continue with this programme for many years.