Lending is a core service offered to corporate banking clients.

There are a huge variety of ways that funding can be provided.

This can be through unsecured facilities such as a simple overdraft or through a secured loan where the bank has a claim on an asset or assets of the business.

Beyond this, most simple form of lending are contingency facilities, which are referred to as revolving credit facilities, CFS or revolvers.

These allow corporates to borrow on pre-agreed terms if they need to in the future, for example, in a liquidity crisis.

But these facilities also give companies with predictable short-term financing needs the ability to meet these needs on a flexible basis.

An example of this is needing to borrow during the period in which inventory levels are being built up prior to a busy selling period.

Some corporates may seek financing for the purchase of certain assets, for example, commodities or machinery, which are then used as collateral for the loan to reduce the borrowing cost.

Finally, based on a corporate's credit quality, settlement lines are often established.

Settlement lines are limits in place on the corporate's accounts to allow them to move money and trade within these limits without the bank needing to check that the corporate has available funds to settle each transaction.

These limits can apply to various types of transactions such as payment, settlement limits for large payment runs like salaries or wire settlement limits that enable wire transfers to be sent before the anticipated funds are received.