Let's now look at more complex areas.

Moving to the upper floor of our house of corporate banking, working capital can be a financing issue for growing companies.

The vast majority of businesses that fail financially are not unprofitable, but rather they have insufficient liquid assets to meet their liabilities as they fall due.

In other words, they have a cashflow issue.

For a growing business, their cash flows can be negatively impacted by offering generous credit terms on sales to attract customers, or through an expansion of inventory, building up inventory in anticipation of future sales.

Both of these movements would result in a negative impact on the company's cash position, but this is where a corporate bank can step in and offer solutions to improve the cash flow of their corporate clients.

A good corporate bank would review the company's published accounts and discuss working capital needs directly with the client.

The subject of working capital costs and how to improve them is a key topic in a corporate board meetings, so any assistance a bank can provide here is incredibly beneficial to a corporate.