Bjarne Tellmann is senior vice president and general counsel at GSK Consumer Healthcare, a joint venture that combines the consumer brands of GSK and Pfizer. He speaks to Global Finance about the intersectionality of his work.
Household saving is defined as the difference between a household’s disposable income and its expenditures on goods and services. During the pandemic it rose to historical highs everywhere.
On October 27, Global Finance conducted a Sub-custody Roundtable, moderated by publisher and editorial director Joseph Giarraputo. The Roundtable agenda covered crucial topics in the sub-custody sector including: the global and regional impact on the COVID-19 pandemic on sub-custodians; the effect ...
“Global Transaction Banking is the fastest growing unit in Société Générale,” says Christian Behaghel, head of GTB at the bank. “It is a very stable business, and while we generate something like 6% of the total revenue of the bank, we are experiencing growth of our revenue of 10-15% a year.” This compares, he says, to some areas of retail banking that have 0-2% growth a year. Behaghel joined the division just a year ago, coming from investment banking, and recognizes the clear differences between the two areas of business for the French bank.
GTB coordinates the activities of SocGen in correspondent banking, factoring, trade finance, cash management and FX, which lately means not only other financial institutions and exotic currencies but also corporates—a trend we explored in the Sibos Preview newsletter last week. “Other banks have the securities business linked with GTB,” explains the French banker “but for us it is linked with the investment banking.” That link is another big trend in transaction banking.
The two functions of GTB are very clear: “to serve local clients, and to serve large corporations and financial institutions, some 800 in the world, in supranational services,” says Behaghel. The bank, besides its European presence, focuses on its areas of strength in West and North Africa, in Eastern Europe and in Russia. To cover other markets, the bank often partners with “strong regional players like ANZ for Southeast Asia and Barclays for parts of Africa where we do not have a direct presence—like we do in the north of the continent and in the francophone countries,” he notes. “We are also looking for a possible partner in Latin America.”
The priorities of Behaghel? “Manage better working capital for clients and understand better the needs of corporates.” So much so that in order “to offer more intelligent services in areas like treasury, we are recruiting people from corporates,” he says. While many have bemoaned the negative impact of Russian sanctions on trade flows, Behaghel has the opposite view. With its strong presence in Russia where it controls over 99% of Rosbank, he sees the sanctions as “an opportunity in trade finance. Our bank does all the funding there and is not supported by the holding [company], and while other banks are retreating.. our business is growing.”