Our Consultants
Andrew Austin Bsc ACIB
Andrew has over 12 years experience within relationship management for a major UK bank and 14 years experience of reviewing the banking, treasury, and cash management arrangements for a large number of companies, professional firms and public sector bodies. He also has extensive experience of running tenders for banking arrangements.
Andrew is a founding Director of Focus on Banking. He is an Honours Graduate of Exeter University and an associate of the Chartered Institute of Bankers. His banking background was as a relationship manager with NatWest, where he was responsible for dealing with professional firms and companies in a range of sectors in the City. During his 10 years with NatWest, he also spent some time in the Treasury and Capital Markets businesses.
Peter Waite CertCM
Peter worked for a major UK bank for over 14 years where he gained considerable experience managing corporate relationships with firms operating in a variety of industry sectors. He spent two years with the bank’s card division gaining a detailed knowledge of the plastic debit and credit card industry.
Peter has worked for 12 years as a consultant responsible for reviewing banking, treasury and cash management arrangements for a large number of companies, charities and public sector bodies. He has managed numerous tenders for both banking and credit/debit card acquiring arrangements.
Peter has gained the ACT qualification in cash management and has written a number of articles on different aspects of cash management within the UK.
James Larholt
James has 40 years experience in treasury, 25 of them spent with a leading international bank. He worked for a hedge fund for 8 years, and then became an independent treasury consultant, advising companies on foreign exchange and interest rate risk management, and lecturing on treasury to bank training schools. He has also carried out projects for the Association of Corporate Treasurers.
As sales director, James has brought his extensive contacts in both the private and public sectors to Focus on Banking, and has made a significant contribution to the expansion of the company’s client base.
News
Our experience is, however, that it remains a competitive market place and banks do want to lend to good quality covenants and retain existing or win new money transmission business. We continue to help clients reduce costs and if your bank has increased its income from lines of credit or charges then it is probably a good time to review the whole relationship to ensure that in overall terms pricing and charges remain competitive.
This has driven charities to look harder for ways to reduce costs and improve efficiency. Focus on Banking has now worked with 15 major UK charities in the last two years and has been able to generate savings in banking and credit/debit card acquiring arrangements of well over £500,000.
Whilst undoubtedly for certain types of contracts, authorities will benefit from economies of scale, this does not necessarily apply to banking. In fact banks have tended to show little appetite for complicated joint contracts and will not usually offer discounts or reduced pricing when several authorities collaborate.
Maintaining and increasing client balances held has become a key target for banks and there has never been a better time to review relationships.
We have now worked with more than 65 of the UK’s largest professional firms and the number continues to grow.
Although we are not aware of any recent challenges in respect of banking contracts, it is now vital to ensure that Bank Tender documentation clearly outlines the criteria and scoring methodology in order to avoid any potential challenge.
Focus on Banking has vast experience in tendering Local Authority banking contacts and we are familiar with how banks will respond to the questions asked. We are therefore able to devise bespoke scoring systems to ensure that the contract is awarded to the most appropriate bank. Without professional involvement in the production of evaluation criteria, Local Authorities face the risk of having to award a bank contract based on the evaluation scores even though in real terms the highest scoring bank does not offer the best value for money.
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