Strategic Positioning of E-Commerce Business Models inthe Portfolio of Corporate Banking

The emergence of e-commerce leads to a fundamental change for the financialindustry. The transition into a digital economy produces numerous newopportunities as well as great risks. B2B e-commerce in particular is considered apromising field for the future. As B2B is very closely related to corporate banking,emerging B2B e-commerce business models should constantly be evaluated tosee how they fit into the portfolio of current corporate banking activities.This paper provides a framework for a systematic examination of B2B ecommercebusiness models and their position in the portfolio of corporate banking.The framework is based on recent work on roles and tasks in business networks.The evaluation of 17 selected business models has been performed by a two-stepapproachwhich includes interviews with experts and a specific scoring model. Thepaper indicates that certain business models, like e-marketplaces, seem to be lessattractive despite of huge investments of German banks in this field. However,models combining a bank’s core competence with new technology offer a highpotential in e-commerce activities.