The old model of credit-led corporate banking is dead.

That is the hypothesis of Axel Miller, a partner at consultancy Oliver Wyman, who said as much last month at a panel discussion at the annual banking and financial conference Sibos. Miller proposed nothing less than an upending of conventional wisdom, which says that the key element in the relationship between a company and its bank is lending. Miller's proposal: that the factor is reducing in importance, and the new defining element in the relationship will be the bank's ability to provide transaction banking services.