In my view, the corporates will always require investment banks to render services such as investment advisory, corporate restructuring, distressed assets acquisition and disposal, mergers and acquisitions, equity and debt financing. The investment banks have to get away from their aspiration to mimic commercial banks and build up their capabilities in the areas, which are begging for help.
Commercial banks will never be able to compete with them either on costs or customer satisfaction even if they all profess that they can provide total banking solutions to all the clients needs. Several investment banks have merged into commercial banks but those who are serious players in this field should re-examine their strategies and direction and build up their human resource capabilities.