Transaction banking once suffered a dull reputation, considered a sleepy suburb compared with the bright lights and big city of investment banking. But times have changed and, as the glamorous end of the business has become expensive and volatile, chief executives are hankering after steady returns and predictability.

Transaction banking has been bathing in plaudits since the financial crisis. Samir Assaf, HSBC's chief executive of global banking and markets, said last year that banks were calling it "the holy grail of the industry". Olivier Khayat, deputy head of corporate and investment banking and interim head of global transaction banking at UniCredit, described it as "the spine of the bank".