A mid-market company buys the same swap as a FTSE 100 name, often from the same banks, and routinely gets a worse outcome. The product is identical. The difference is everything around it.
The product is identical. The difference is the coverage and the resources around it.
Banks triage their clients by expected revenue, so the early call before a refinancing goes to the largest names.
The gap is structural. It is filled by a desk that covers past its ranking, by an adviser inside the process, or by a treasurer who forces the timing.
How bank coverage is allocated
Start with how coverage actually allocates. A banker carrying 60 or 80 names cannot hand-hold 60 or 80 names, so the book is triaged by expected wallet, and the pre-emptive call, the one that starts months before the refinancing, goes to the clients ranked to matter. Everyone else gets the right conversation only if the timing happens to land, and timing that depends on luck is not coverage.
Who receives the call
Then look at who receives the call. The FTSE treasury has a team that prices the mid, interrogates the structure and runs its banks against each other. The mid-market finance director is doing all of this alongside a day job, often without a screen that shows where the market is. So the least covered clients are also the least equipped to self-serve, and the two gaps compound.
No misconduct, just economics
There is no misconduct in any of this. Triage is what the economics of coverage require, and every bank does it. But the result is that the mid-market pays the widest margins precisely where the least advice is supplied, which is the opposite of how advice is supposed to price.
How the gap gets filled
The gap is structural, so it gets filled structurally: by the rare desk that covers past its wallet ranking, by advisers brought inside the process, or by a treasurer who forces the timing rather than waiting on it. The one certainty is that it does not fill itself.
First published as a LinkedIn post on 10 August 2026. Read and comment on LinkedIn.