Bank connectivity 2.0. New solutions offer new opportunities! (Dutch Item)

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05-05-2021 | treasuryXL | Enigma Consulting |

Veel organisaties hebben voor het betalingsverkeer een zogenaamde ‘Payment Hub’ geïmplementeerd voor de connectiviteit met de banken. Zo’n hub zorgt voor een veilige, automatische connectie om betaal- en incasso opdrachten naar de bank(en) te sturen en dagafschriften te ontvangen. Veel van deze hubs zijn in 2012 bij de overgang naar SEPA geïntroduceerd. Sindsdien is de technologie echter drastisch veranderd en bieden nieuwe oplossingen, via Software-as-a-Service (SaaS), rijkere functionaliteit aan tegen een veel efficiënter bedrijfsmodel. “Het wordt dus hoog tijd om uw bankconnectiviteit opnieuw onder de loep te nemen!”, aldus Roderick Kroon, partner bij Enigma Consulting.

“Het gebruik van een Corporate Payment hub voor bankconnectiviteit tussen de corporate ERP / TMS-systemen en de bankrelaties neemt in aantal toe. Trends als digitalisering, standaardisatie en de toegenomen aandacht voor fraude- en risicomanagement maken het automatiseren van de connectiviteit met banken een onderwerp op de managementagenda.”

Er zijn volgens Kroon momenteel drie interessante ontwikkelingen die resulteren in een verhoogde focus op bankconnectiviteit in de Nederlandse markt:



1. De toegenomen focus op het ‘in control’ willen zijn

“In het verleden waren Treasury en Finance vooral gefocust op de hoge waarde / laag volume Treasury betalingen en niet te veel op de commerciële betaalstromen. Uit de discussies van Enigma met veel corporate treasurers zien we een grotere focus op het ‘in control’ zijn door bijvoorbeeld handmatige activiteiten te verminderen, het aantal tokens voor elektronische banksystemen te verminderen en realtime inzicht in liquiditeit te hebben. De verbeterde proposities van TMS-systemen en netwerk partijen zoals SWIFT, leiden tot de logische stap om de bankconnectiviteit te automatiseren. Dit omvat niet alleen de automatisering van de betaalstromen, maar ook de ontvangst en distributie van bankafschriften intern.”

2. Er zijn nieuwe (payment hub) oplossingen met een revolutionair bedrijfsmodel

“Ook aan de oplossingszijde zien we interessante ontwikkelingen. Nieuwe (Fintech) leveranciers zoals Cobase, Nomentia, Kyriba of TIS nemen (multi-tenant) SaaS als uitgangspunt om de IT-footprint te verkleinen en zorgen ervoor dat klanten direct profiteren van verbeteringen die voor andere gebruikers wordt ontwikkeld. Vooral op het gebied van bankconnectiviteit zien we een verschuiving van ‘maatwerk voor de klant’ naar ‘best-practise oplossingen van de leverancier zelf’. Gebruikers profiteren direct van investeringen die reeds gemaakt zijn voor andere klanten en bankkoppelingen die al deel uitmaken van de standaardoplossing. Sommige leveranciers gaan zelfs nog verder en bieden de gehele bank onboarding aan als ‘service’.”

“Kennis van de details van betaalformaten, (bank)kanaalopties en noodzakelijk contracten is dan niet meer noodzakelijk zelf te hebben. Andere (eveneens SaaS) leveranciers zoals COUPA Treasury of Serrala richten zich op het creëren van complete ecosystemen en samenwerkingen met derde partijen om de waarde propositie en relevantie verder te versterken.”

3. Vervanging van (verouderde) Payment Hub-oplossingen

“Een derde interessante ontwikkeling is dat ‘early stage’ payment hubs aan het einde van hun economische levenscyclus zijn gekomen en aan vervanging toe zijn. Sterker nog, één grote speler (CPH van FIS) heeft haar klanten geïnformeerd einde 2021 te stoppen met het product waardoor tientallen bedrijven op zoek moeten naar een andere oplossing.”

Met de introductie van SEPA in 2012 maakte een groot aantal bedrijven de keuze om een payment hub te implementeren, vertelt Kroon. “De belangrijkste focus in die tijd was het verminderen van de complexiteit van veranderingen in het bestaande IT-landschap. In die tijd speelden Payment Hub-oplossingen vooral een rol bij:

  • Bestandsconversie of -verrijking van (in NL Clieop) formaten naar SEPA formaten
  • SEPA-machtigingsbeheer voor automatische incasso om de (te complexe) ‘FIRST versus ‘RECURRENT’ richtlijnen te volgen en het nieuw vereiste ‘machtigingskenmerk’ te administreren
  • Het bieden van een alternatief voor kanalen die banken besloten uit te faseren om hun SEPA-programma’s te vereenvoudigen (bijvoorbeeld het ING Finstream-kanaal)”

“De stand van de techniek was echter totaal anders dan tegenwoordig. API’s, SaaS of Cloud bestonden niet. De implementatie was veelal ‘on-premise’ met een aanzienlijke IT-voetafdruk en initiële CAPEX-investering. In de afgelopen maanden heeft Enigma Consulting meerdere discussies gevoerd over de noodzaak om deze ‘vroege’ payments hubs te vervangen en zijn wij betrokken bij meerdere selectie en vervangingstrajecten. De leverancierselectie projecten die we hebben gedaan ter vervanging van bestaande oplossingen hebben interessant genoeg een zeer positieve businesscase als resultaat:

  • Er zijn grote extra investeringen (soms upgrades) nodig in de legacy-oplossingen om de IT-beveiliging te verbeteren of om nieuwe bedrijfsfuncties beschikbaar te maken. Nieuwe oplossingen zullen deze kosten onmiddellijk elimineren;
  • De huidige kosten zijn in vergelijking met de kosten van nieuwe oplossingen een stuk duurder;
  • Sommige leveranciers zijn van eigenaar veranderd en de focus op payments én bankconnectiviteit is verdwenen, terwijl nieuwe oplossingen de huidige marktfactoren en ontwikkelingen in het betaaldomein zeer groep begrijpen;
  • Nieuwe SaaS / Cloud-oplossingen verkleinen de IT-footprint aanzienlijk en vereisen veel minder (vaak schaarse) capaciteit van IT voor onderhoud / upgrades;
  • De huidige payment hubs bieden een breder scala aan diensten en kunnen veel eenvoudiger (via API’s) worden geïntegreerd met andere systemen (bijv. cashmanagement, fraude, treasury, ERP, transactie monitoring);
  • Veel payment hubs bieden mu volledige ondersteuning voor ‘on-behalf’ (POBO / COBO) verwerking in combinatie met in-house bankieren en / of virtuele accountoplossingen.”

Is bankconnectiviteit een apart onderwerp?

Kroon: “Niet per se. Hoewel het onderwerp zelf perfect als individueel vraagstuk kan worden aangepakt, zien we dat onze klanten de benodigde verandering op dit domein koppelen aan een bredere discussie over hun financiële waardeketen. Vaak gaat een noodzakelijke verandering in het connectiviteitsdomein van banken hand in hand met bredere discussies over de visie ten aanzien van ‘betalen’ en het gerelateerde Target Operating Model, waarin alle marktontwikkelingen (outside in), interne ambities (inside out) en discussie over de bankrelatie (s) worden meegenomen. De selectie van de best passende leverancier voor de payment hub moet dan worden gezien in het bredere perspectief van een routekaart (roadmap) voor Payments op de middellange termijn.”

Dus wat nu te doen?

“We raden aan om de oplossing die is gekozen voor de bankconnectiviteit opnieuw te (laten) beoordelen. Indien deze nog niet geautomatiseerd is kan er een sterke businesscase zijn om dit te veranderen, de efficiëntie te verbeteren en risico’s te verminderen. Indien er al wel een oplossing is kunnen er argumenten zijn om te profiteren van vervanging door een van de nieuwe oplossingen die ‘meer bieden voor minder’.”

“Wij adviseren om verder te kijken dan alleen bankconnectiviteit en het volledige betaaldomein in beschouwing te nemen om te valideren of men voldoende voorbereid is op de toekomst, rekening houdend met alle nieuwe ontwikkelingen in het betalingsverkeer. Enigma Consulting kan de business case versterken door een efficiënt traject met behulp van de unieke ‘RFP-as-a- service’ en ‘Payments Road map’.”

Bank connectivity – why it is not a one-size-fits-all issue

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04-05-2021 | Luca Crivellari | treasuryXL |

Corporate to bank communication is still a very pressing issue in cash management. There are several alternatives that allow corporates to interface and exchange data with banks, and most of the times it is complex for treasurers to identify the best choice. The consequence of not adopting the best setup might be to receive inadequate or old information, or the inability to have the right level of control over the issue of payments. The aim of the article is to assist treasurers in identifying all the relevant variables, and to take a decision that factors in all the possible impacts of each alternative.


Introduction – Why bank connectivity is still a hot topic?

In 1973, over 200 banks from 15 countries created a cooperative body with the aim of easing the communication among banks. This organization was born under the name of SWIFT, the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication.

SWIFT enables its customers to automate and standardize the processing of financial transactions, thereby lowering costs, reducing operational risk and eliminating inefficiencies from their operations.

The rise in global trade was the main reason why financial institutions were pressed by defining a common standard for international payments and reporting, and the aim was to avoid lengthy conversions, useless charges and operational inefficiencies that might derive from the use of different standards.

Fast forward to today, SWIFT is the undisputed backbone of financial markets, with over 11,000 financial institutions and corporations in more than 200 countries, processing a record of 46,3 million messages in a single day on the FIN service. SWIFT messages are nowadays used for both bank-to-bank and corporate-to-bank communication, and the organization has developed dedicated categories for messages that are related to payments, cash management, foreign exchange, trade finance, treasury markets, and securities.

Overtime, several other organizations with a similar aim were created, at national or international level. It is worth to mention the CBI (Customer to Business Interaction, former Corporate Banking Interbancario) consortium in Italy, and the EBICS (Electronic Banking Internet Communication Standard) protocol in Germany.

We still live in a world of different standards and practices, where corporates often struggle in navigating among the different options they have when it comes to issue a payment or to receive a piece of account statement. This article is meant to be a guide for corporate treasurers on how to select the right connectivity setup, because there is no such a thing as a universal optimum, and every alternative has its own advantages and its own shortcomings.

From the experience I gathered during the last years of conversations with several corporates based throughout Europe, one of their most relevant priorities is to consolidate an accurate picture of the liquidity available in the company bank accounts, on a daily basis. Too many organizations, including some with a relevant experience in international business and with a very important turnover, are still relying on Excel files shared on a monthly basis, in order to get the information of the balance that is sitting in a certain bank. In a world where business is changing rapidly, this can be an issue.

Moreover, the ever-changing technology landscape is adding complexity to the issue. New trends as the API-based connectivity can definitely allow a more efficient exchange of information, shortening the gap to a real time treasury, while the migration from MT to MX messaging standard is going to heavily impact how payments are going to be settled in the near future.

In conclusion, bank connectivity is still a hot topic because it is yet perceived as being a complicated issue by many corporates, and there is a clear need for treasurers to figure out all the relevant variables before choosing the most valid option for their company.

The alternatives on the market

Years of innovation and progress in information technology and financial markets have developed a wide array of possible bank connectivity services. In order for a treasurer to take the most educated choice, it is essential to list and examine all the options available. The list goes from the simplest to the most complex.

  • E-banking or bank-proprietary platforms: the base scenario nowadays is for a company to exchange messages and documents over an e-banking platform. This kind of platforms are provided by most of the commercial banks, and they include a common range of functionalities such as the possibility to import payment files from the Enterprise Resource Provider, approve them and send them over to the bank for the execution of the transaction. On the informative side, banks can allow their clients to download account statement messages, and possibly to collect statements sent by other banks.

Additional features that an e-banking platform might have are, for example, the possibility to manage direct debit mandates, or to place FX dealing orders to the bank.

Most of the e-banking solution in the market are endowed with a scheduler function that allows to exchange files with external systems such as the Enterprise Resource Provider or the Treasury Management System.

Companies that are relying on an e-banking platform for bank communications should carefully examine the range of functionalities that are included in the solution, when looking for a bank to work with. Corporate e-banking platforms developed by international banks might be more adequate for companies with international business, while domestic banks might develop functionalities that are more fit to the domestic market.

Another variable to consider is the technology that runs behind the platform. Most banks are nowadays offering web-based solutions that are more flexible and easier to maintain than hosted solutions.

The main advantage of relying on e-banking connectivity is the fact that it requires virtually no effort for the channel to be available, especially if it is a web-based service.

Although it is a very practical solution, companies that have multiple banking relationship will need to activate multiple e-banking platform to issue transactions from these bank accounts. Another shortcoming is that the availability and the security of each e-banking platform relies on the systems of the bank who is providing the service, and this can be a potential risk if the financial institution is not disciplined enough to run a highly secure infrastructure.

  • Multibank platforms: one of the most annoying disadvantages of leveraging on e-banking connectivity is to maintain the access to multiple platforms, and to constantly need to switch from one to the other during the day. This shortfall can be bypassed by the adoption of a multibank platform. These solutions work just like an e-banking platform, but they give the possibility to manage bank accounts belonging to more banks via a single solution.

This possibility is often developed by multinational banking groups, that might allow to reach bank accounts within the same banking group via a single e-banking solution.

Alternatively, some banking communities have developed country-wide standards that allow the possibility to manage all the bank accounts that a company has in the country with a single e-banking channel. This is the case of Italy with the CBI service.

Technical advantages and disadvantages of this solution are essentially the same of the e-banking connectivity that was described in the previous point.

  • Host to host connectivity: some financial institutions allow their corporate clients to exchange files via a secured file transfer mechanism. This option is preferred when the company has a privileged relationship with a specific bank, and this is the case because the setup of a host-to-host connection can be a time consuming task both on the bank and on the corporate side.

It is important to bear in mind that a dedicated host to host connection can be a resource intensive solution to maintain, therefore it is key to agree with the partner bank who is responsible in the maintenance of the service, and which is the minimum uptime contractually agreed.

Having a host to host connection with a specific bank means that the company is clearly trusting the security protocol of the financial institution. Connections of this kind are normally secured by an encryption protocol, and this makes a host-to-host connection generally more secure than an e-banking connection.

  • SWIFT connection: most of the companies with a complex cash management infrastructure choose to connect directly to the SWIFT network.

Being part of the SWIFT network means for a company to be identified with a specific SWIFT code, the same identifier that is normally used by banks.

It also means that a company can securely exchange files with several banking partners from a single channel, and for this reason a SWIFT connection is the preferred option for companies that have implemented a central payment factory.

Two separate services are used within the SWIFT network: the FIN service is used to exchange single MT messages to banks connected to the network. This service is normally used to receive account statements such as MT940/2.

The second service used is called FileAct, and it is the service used to exchange any kind of file to banks. This service is mostly used for bulk payment files such as XML.

Joining the SWIFT network as a mean to consolidate payment operations in the company headquarter or in a shared service center can definitely bring efficiencies, but at the same time it makes sense to go through this road only if the company has the necessary resources to maintain a SWIFT connection overtime, or if it is willing to outsource the maintenance of the connection to a service bureau.

  • API-based connection: with the sharp rise of open banking in Europe, driven by the PSD2 regulation, the adoption of APIs is becoming more and more common among banks, corporates, and software vendors. An API, or Application Programming Interface, is an interface that allows a secure exchange of information among several software applications. Through an API, the company and the bank can exchange information such as payment files or account statements, without the need to setup and maintain a resource-intensive host-to-host connection.

Although it is a very interesting concept, most of the players in the financial industry still have to develop an adequate IT infrastructure in order to get the benefits of this new protocol.

An important role can be played by software vendors that are offering Enterprise Resource Providers or Treasury Management Systems, since they have a strong incentive to differentiate their offer by develop APIs that would connect their solution to the largest possible number of banks.

Who should manage your SWIFT connection, and why should it be FIS?

Every company that wishes to connect to the SWIFT network should ask itself which configuration is the best for them. The main question to consider for a company is if it has the adequate resources to manage and run a SWIFT connection, or if they want to leverage on a service bureau.

Companies that wish to setup and maintain their SWIFT connection should plan the IT resources required to host the SWIFT software, and the personnel that will be dedicated to fulfill all the functional and technical duties required by SWIFT or by the banks.

Because of the effort that is required to setup and maintain a SWIFT connection, a company might decide to outsource those tasks. A SWIFT service bureau can help companies to establish and ensure the availability of the SWIFT network overtime.

Via the Managed Bank Connectivity service, FIS offers its capabilities as one of the largest SWIFT service bureaus in the world, being a key partner for more than 350 groups of banks and corporates, spread in over 35 countries. As part of the Service Level Agreement that FIS has with its clients, service availability is set for a minimum of 99,5%, although the average uptime for 2020 was 99,99%.

Companies that choose to leverage on a service bureau are either those with a very limited staff within the treasury department, or those that have a very complex cash management infrastructure.

The cost of connecting to the SWIFT network via a service bureau can be quite relevant, therefore companies that are evaluating this kind of solution should create a comprehensive and accurate business case that includes both direct and indirect expenses for both alternatives.

Which variables should be considered?

A company should consider several variables when evaluating which is the most adequate connectivity setup.

  • The size of the business: it might sound overkill for a small corporate to adopt a SWIFT connection, in fact most of the small business normally rely on e-banking portals. More complicated connectivity choices are normally more expensive, and it might not be sustainable for a modest company to adopt more complex solutions
  • The number of markets the company is operating: multinational companies normally need several banks in order to do business internationally, therefore a company that is active in several countries might want to adopt a SWIFT connection in order to collect the daily account statements and to orchestrate their payment flows.
  • The number of banking relationships: a company that is operating with several banks might find difficult to maintain access to several e-banking portals. In this case, a company of this kind might want to evaluate a SWIFT connection, unless a country wide multibank standard is available.
  • The company treasury policies: there are several reasons for a company to centralize their payments at headquarter level, or to keep them at country or at division level. The choice of connectivity should reflect the processes in place within a company: in corporate groups where every country is responsible to issue their own transactions, and banking relationships are limited in number, e-banking platforms can work just fine, while on the other hand an international payment factory will most probably require access to the SWIFT network.

Whatever process should the company have in place, it should anyway explore a way to consolidate the account statements of all the subsidiary at headquarter level, in order for the holding company to have complete information on the liquidity situation at group level, and to make sure that liquidity is used in the best possible way.

How to choose the best connectivity solution?

If there is one thing that I have learned by talking to corporate treasurers overtime, it is that no treasury is alike, and every treasury has its own peculiarities.

Given the vast array of bank connectivity options, I will define a few examples of treasury infrastructure, and I will pair them to my recommended choice of connectivity.


Case

 

 

Recommended solution

 

 

Company Alfa

 
Alfa is a company based in the UK, producing semi-finished goods for the food industry. The production is completely sold to English companies, and all its suppliers are based in the UK.

Alfa has two bank accounts, with two English cooperative banks.

 Through the e-banking portal of the two banking partner, Alfa will be able to perform all the necessary operations for its daily business.

 

Company Beta

 
Beta is the headquarter company of a large conglomerate of ventures, operating in several industries. Since the subsidiaries operate in very different markets, the group policy is for every subsidiary to manage their treasury separately, and to orchestrate their payments independently.

The group has relationships with around 30 banks, counting more than 600 bank accounts.

 Every subsidiary of the Beta group will choose its most efficient setup, but the holding company will need to setup a channel to collect efficiently the account statement of all the 600 bank accounts of the group. This will allow Beta group to closely monitor the transactions and to efficiently use its liquidity.

Given the large number of bank relationship, my advice would be to setup a SWIFT connection.

 

Company Gamma

 
Gamma is a group of companies providing consulting services. The group has grown dramatically in the last years, acquiring smaller ventures around the world, and the CFO just hired a group treasurer that has the task to rationalize the banking relationships, and to setup the most efficient treasury infrastructure.

Payments are quite limited in number.

 It would make sense for Gamma to look for a global bank with which to open bank accounts around the world.

By having one main bank, Gamma will easily orchestrate a cash pooling from its headquarter, and it will be easy for the group treasurer to control the payments that are performed by the local staff.

The most efficient connectivity scenario is a host-to-host connection (or a connection via API if available), with the main banking partner, while payments from minor bank accounts will be done via the e-banking.

 

Company Delta

 
Delta is a telecommunication company operating at global level. Due to the nature of its business, the company sends and collects a vast amount of payments of any size from retail and business customers located in several countries.

The company needs to offer the widest range of payment options, therefore it needs to have relevant banking relationships in many countries.

 The best way to orchestrate payments and collections on such a complex company is to setup a connection to the SWIFT network.

Given the very complex cash management setup and the large number of banks involved, it will be essential to have the infrastructure served by a service bureau.

 

Company Epsilon

 
Epsilon is a company operating in the mining and trading industry, headquartered in Spain but with operations in other five countries.

The company needs to maintain a wide range of banking relationship due to the complex financing plans in place.

The treasury department employs a single person, and there is no plan for the company to hire more treasury staff.

 Due to the complex landscape of banking relationships, and the need for the company to control the incoming and outgoing information flows to the banks, my advice would be to implement a SWIFT connection.

As highlighted in the box, it would be extremely hard for a single person to handle the requirements coming from SWIFT and the banks, therefore my suggestion is to adopt a Service Bureau

 

Conclusion – a complex matter requires a complex answer

As I do with most of the complex questions I receive, when asked which is the ideal connectivity setup for my company, my natural answer is: “it depends”.

The aim of this article was to communicate how sophisticated it can be to identify the best possible way to connect a corporate to a bank, or to several banks. My wish is for every treasurer out there to carefully balance all the options, and to include all the relevant items into a specific business case, in order to have a functioning and sustainable infrastructure.

More about the author, who is Luca Crivellari?

Luca is based in Italy and he is a Sales Executive at FIS, specialized in Corporate Liquidity solutions. He has a solid experience in cash management and treasury, having matured experiences in banking and fintech.

Thank you for reading!

 

Treasury: the sad story about the ones that do not get it

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28-04-2021 | treasuryXL | Pieter de Kiewit

The great Dutch philosopher Johan Cruijff said: “Je gaat het pas zien als je het door hebt”, roughly translated “you only see if you get it”. I recently thought about this when visiting and working with a mid-sized local company. Their treasury team was much bigger than the teams of companies in the same industry two or three times their revenue size. In this team, for example, they had two employees full-time entering manual payments. Data and instructions are gathered from a multitude of systems and typed into banking software. Time is lost, mistakes are made, staff demotivated and money lost. They refused to hire a qualified candidate who could help because his expected base salary was a few thousands of euros too high…..

Recently the Dutch regulatory body for financial markets, AFM, published this research that shows that companies would benefit from a more mature market in alternative funding. One of their observations is that new solutions, for instance in working capital, are accepted even though the rates that have to be paid are preposterous. They see the market grow, not enough focus on credit rating and doubt if the market will stabilize in a professional manner. A stronger regulatory framework is suggested. I am in doubt, who will do the audit?

Those who are in need for strong treasury seem to ignore the available expertise. Distrust? Lack of time? Afraid of treasury lingo?


Personally I hope that entrepreneurs and CFOs will train their critical thinking and only use what they understand. Cost that are hidden in the total price of their treasury solutions are regretfully accepted easier than a separate price for the right solution and one for the advice. That is regrettable because one of the effects is that companies get perhaps the cheapest but the wrong solutions.

We have a simple suggestion: digest what you know about treasury and ask the most obvious question you can think of. Ask the expert panel and pass our suggestion forward to anyone you might think have a proper question. It is a matter of time until we get it all. I am sure.

Take care, Pieter

 

 

Pieter de Kiewit

Owner at Treasurer Search

 

 

 

How to Prepare for a New Era of Real-time Banking and Payment Services

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20-04-2021 | treasuryXL | Kyriba |

An active liquidity network allows companies to avoid multiple costs and delays by globally managing liquidity across their subsidiaries. With 500 banks involved and over 40,000 payment formats to use, this is already a reality for over 2,000 Kyriba clients.

I am often asked, what is an “Active Liquidity Network”? Actually it’s the very foundation of the Kyriba platform, but let me use a simple example to illustrate what it is and the difference it makes.

Technology is providing us with so many great options for everyday life activities. Take the humble takeaway. Not so long ago you’d call up, your order would be placed in a manual ordering system, food would be prepared and then it would be delivered. Today the takeaway experience can be very different. You will order on a mobile device or with a delivery service or by voice or Messenger. The delivery service tells the kitchen what food to prepare, conducts all the billing and organises the food to be couriered to you. While the cooking of the food is still manual, everything else is managed by cloud-based technologies, and you have lots of options, each with their own take on how to make your takeaway experience better, faster, cheaper.

The same thing is happening within businesses. SaaS technology enables your corporate teams to work more autonomously with a resource-planning package that is more bespoke to their task. The original ERP is being unbundled and focused on aggregating accounting entries from various other systems. These bring great benefits to your company’s ability to compete in the marketplace, making you better, faster and cheaper. But given that many of these tools are able to instruct or make payments, this introduces a hazardous landscape for currently accepted liquidity management and control practices.

The problem is further exaggerated by the global expansion that has taken place in the last 20 – 30 years. Technology isn’t just providing more options for how a corporate plans its resources. It’s also providing better, cheaper, faster options for how payments are made and received. Each approach has its own pros and cons. The upshot is that there are many more providers today conducting more payments in more innovative ways, but this innovation, while opening up new choices, also makes the payments landscape more complex.

All this hasn’t stopped an explosion in electronic payment volumes. This is an unstoppable trend that demands a more robust way of controlling and managing payments in and out of business of any size, just as a restaurant receiving 1,000 takeaway orders a night will need to move away from servicing orders on pen and paper. The risks, the costs, and the lack of speed and optimisation are all too great.

The challenge you face

Now, let’s look at a corporate example to illustrate the challenge. Let’s assume a multinational group has a subsidiary in Birmingham, in the UK, which needs to make payments for goods and services to suppliers in Romania and Turkey. The subsidiary has its operating bank account with TSB and is using the bank’s SMB portal to manage cash and make payments. Its ERP system is connected with the bank’s portal for automatic payment file upload. At the same time, the company has subsidiaries in Romania and Turkey that also have a similar setup with their local banks. It all looks good and well-automated everywhere.

But to actually make a payment to a Turkish or Romanian supplier, the Birmingham-based subsidiary’s treasurer has to go through the following steps: approve a foreign currency payment; agree to the exchange rate offered by the bank, which is given without reference to a spread of interbank rates; wait for one or two days for the other FX rate to settle; wait one or two days more for the payment to be cleared by TSB via Swift and the corresponding bank network; wait some more until the supplier confirms they have received the funds and made a shipment; and finally reconcile it all manually with the ERP system.

As a result, the subsidiary incurs the FX spread, swap rates on every payment up to 100 basis points, and interbank transfer fees for every payment of £20. There are also three further delays before the funds reach the beneficiary accounts and manual reconciliation of the ERP. And that happens with every payment for every subsidiary every day!

It’s a pity that the Birmingham-based company doesn’t know that group company subsidiaries in Romania and Turkey have plenty of lei and lire in their local bank accounts. Or that they are connected to their domestic clearing systems providing same day or in real-time clearing and automating confirmation, or no fee at all. Or that there was a better, faster, cheaper payment option the corporate could easily connect to.

How an Active Liquidity Network works?

Let’s look at a different way of doing this. Imagine that the group chooses Kyriba and gets on board the Kyriba global SaaS platform. All of its subsidiaries – including those in the UK, Romania and Turkey as well as headquarters – and all of those subsidiaries’ ERP systems – are then connected to Kyriba for payment, invoicing, and cash flow upload as well as for GL entry reconciliation. Over 2,000 customers and 65,000 legal entities are live today. Kyriba offers automated bank connectivity via secure SFTP and now bank API with more than 500 banks worldwide and growing. And our bank format libraries have more than 40,000 formats and variances supporting payment originations from more than 100 countries in payment delivery to more than 130 countries. Using Kyriba, the payments submitted by the UK subsidiary will be automatically converted to the relevant domestic clearing formats and submitted to those banks the same day.

What difference does that make? With the Kyriba platform the group can internalise and optimise its payment flows. It can see cash balances and cash forecasts across all currencies and bank accounts in real time. A treasury team using Kyriba Cash Forecasting and Kyriba In-house Banking Module can net the outflows by currency and use the market to square off or net the currency positions. As soon as the payments are acknowledged by the banks in real-time or (worst case) next morning, the confirmations and automated dual entries can be imported into the UK subsidiary’s ERP for automated reconciliation.

Better still, the company can use offers like Kyriba Pay, powered by partners like NatWest, that offer competitive and transparent FX spreads with no hidden fees attached. They can choose to use the liquidity they have in lei, lire or other currencies to make the payments without FX conversions at all. That means no interbank fees, globally optimising the effects of exposures and costs, and making same-day payments to 130 countries with automatic dual reconciliation.

That’s what we mean by an Active Liquidity Network. Ours is already the largest in the world, and growing by about 30% annually. It is the foundation of the Kyriba platform that enables our Treasury payment factory risk management and supply chain finance applications, as well as many other value-added services. We are already processing 17 million transactions on behalf of our customers on an average day. We will continue to innovate our existing propositions.

The world’s connectivity is moving to open API. We are pursuing that in three ways.

First, Bank API Connectivity: we have completed pilots with two global banks already, and will be delivering many more in 2021. Secondly, ERP API Connectivity, leading to ERP connect on marketplace, and thirdly Kyriba Open API, to turn the Kyriba active liquidity network into an open API platform for customers, partners and fintechs. This is what we call the Kyriba Active Liquidity Network.

It is here right now and you have a choice to make. Deal on your own with the growing size and complexity of managing liquidity at global scale on time, with speed, accuracy and efficiency . . . or join the 2,000 corporations who are doing it by leveraging the Kyriba platform, and really drive the value of your business.

 

How SpendLab recovered more than €200 million EUR for its clients

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14-04-2021 | treasuryXL | SpendLab |

Our Partner SpendLab Recovery is the Dutch market leader in spend justification. The company is a former spin-off from the Dutch government with a 98 year old heritage in procurement. It currently specializes in generating liquidity for clients by analyzing -and identifying anomalies in accounts payable data.  SpendLab generates liquidity for clients by using their Accounts Payable Recovery Analyzer (APRA) and thereby is able to recover millions. Last year, SpendLab recovered almost 400 million invoices and recovered over €200 million in Cash & Profit. With a Customer rating of 8.1, SpendLab is able to deliver quality services to its clients.

Find out how SpendLab recovered millions of value for its clients and how SpendLab can help your organization via this interview conducted in collaboration with treasuryXL!

We asked SpendLab 10 questions, let’s go!

INTERVIEW

1. Can you tell something about SpendLab Recovery?

SpendLab is the Dutch market leader in spend justification and has grown significantly during the past years. The organization is a former spin-off of the Dutch government with a 98 year old heritage in procurement. SpendLab is specialized in generating liquidity for clients by analyzing- and identifying anomalies in raw Accounts Payable data. Besides the generation of liquidity as part of Treasury, we provide compliance reports that are used by our clients to achieve compliance objectives.

2. What was the main reason to start SpendLab Recovery?

During our analyses back in the day we identified that a significant number of invoices and payments were processed incorrectly in Accounts Payable departments of organizations. As a result of these incorrect processes, liquidity could be recovered over multiple historical years.

During the years we significantly invested in our technology in order to provide our clients with a value proposition that is comprehensible, covering all aspects of an Accounts Payable recovery audit. Despite the approval of financial years by Auditors and Accountants, we are able to recover liquidity from the Accounts Payable for our clients. Nowadays we provide liquidity, a 100% analysis of the administrative Accounts Payable processes, and compliance -and risk reports that can be used for compliance purposes.

3. What is, in your perception, the core issue that SpendLab Recovery solves?

Administrative departments within organizations consistently encompass irregularities that lead to the loss of liquidity, despite the level of automation that is adopted. There will always be a continuous flow of business operations inside an organization, and if there are any checks in place, then these checks are mostly reactive and are used as an add-on for a team or employee. SpendLab specifically focuses on the Accounts Payable and is able to identify any irregularity within the raw AP data. Thereupon, we recover rightful liquidity for clients that they can use for value-adding activities.

4. What are the biggest advantages of using SpendLab Recovery?

From our own perspective the generation of liquidity from the Accounts Payable of financial years that were audited and ‘’closed’’ is a great advantage for our clients. Specifically, we are remunerated for the amount of liquidity that we recover.

In terms of Procurement, the Procurement department is usually in the lead during the contracting phase. However, after this phase a lack of insights and active control exist in how suppliers perform in processing invoices. Through our approach and the methods that we use, you could say that we are educating the suppliers of our clients in processing invoices correctly. Besides, it creates awareness that our clients are performing Accounts Payable Recovery Audits on a structural basis.

5. How does the customer project phase looks like from start till actual results?

Our recovery analysis consists of six project phases and requires approximately four months to conduct. The first results will be visible after only eight weeks. Below the project planning can be found.

6. How fast can customers experience the impact of SpendLab Recovery after implementation?

The average lead time of a recovery project is four months. The first payments from suppliers, however, will be collected after just two months. SpendLab is only charged based on the payments that are received, on the basis of no cure no pay.

7. What is the biggest challenge you ever experienced with SpendLab Recovery?

In the very beginning of Account Payable recovery audits, research was done based on spreadsheets. In the past five years we have invested significantly in our IT-platform APRA®. Nowadays, we have a team of more than twenty employees in the Technology department that are continuously developing software for Recovery. The transformation from manual research to automated research in combination with Machine Learning and Artificial intelligence has been the biggest challenge within SpendLab, and could not have been possible without the team and the investments that had to be made.

It has been a challenging choice to completely focus on IT development. However, this choice has enormously helped our organization in optimizing our service, identifying anomalies in Accounts Payable data, and remaining thought leader in the field of Accounts Payable recovery.

8. What have been the latest successes around product development?

Remote and safe access to ERP systems. Whereas our Data Collections team used to literally fly all around the world to align data requirements and to safely collect the raw data of the Accounts Payable that we need for our recovery audit, we can now align and safely collect (ISO:27001; ISO:9001 certified) the data remotely with and from our clients. SpendLab is now able to conduct a complete Accounts Payable recovery audit on a remote and digital basis. Since March 2020, COVID-19 has only accelerated this level of digitization and the service that we provide for our clients.

Moreover, as an organization we have completely changed our way of working. We now work from our platform on a digital and remote basis. Just like every success, this could not have been achieved without challenges.

9. Can you give us an outlook on the product developments and tell us a bit more about your vision?

We have gone from subsequent recovery analyses over five financial years to periodical visualizations. Together with our clients we have developed a complete recovery service, which we can utilize several times a year over the current financial year. Instead of conducting subsequent recovery audits, we are now aiming to provide our clients with a subscription agreement in which some of our clients even take care of the recovery themselves.

Despite that organizations keep optimizing their internal -and external processes, there will always be errors in processes. Based on the collaboration with and input from our clients, we have invested in optimizing our compliance -and risk reports. We can now offer the visualization of these reports in Power BI, which allows our clients to have live and real-time insights in the Accounts Payable.

10. The world is always changing, how does SpendLab Recovery stays one step ahead of its competitors?

SpendLab has always chosen to conduct Accounts Payable recovery audits only, and we are now an absolute leader in spend justification. This leadership role allows us to partner up with top leading international organizations and to discuss the current and future capabilities that they require from our recovery service. By commencing structural dialogues with leading organizations and system suppliers we challenge tomorrow’s needs in Accounts Payable solutions.

 

Interested in a free SpendLab Recovery demo and see how your company can benefit?

Contact us!

 

Partner Interview Series: Padraig Brosnan, CEO and Founder of Treasury Delta, a corporate treasury RFP platform

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| 08-04-2021 | treasuryXL | Treasury Delta | treasuryXL are delighted to share the interview with CEO and Founder of Treasury Delta, Padraig Brosnan.

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SpendLab Analyzer | Centralization of Accounts Payable Data Platforms

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| 7-4-2020 | treasuryXL | SpendLab Recovery |

Our Partner SpendLab Recovery is introducing the SpendLab Analyzer, a way to centralize accounts payable data platforms worldwide. The platform has the ability to detect failures on Vendor level and provide real time insight. Furthermore, the SpendLab Analyzer can discover undue, incorrect double payments and VAT anomalies

More and more CFOs and Financial Controllers are choosing to work with the latest technology available within the SpendLab Analyzer because of the direct results in extra money, savings and data quality. The result of the analyzer is a recovery of more than 240 million euros in overpaid amounts to the tax authorities and suppliers over the past 5 years.

In addition, the quality in data improvement helps to save money in processes and the statistics ensure that the Compliance & Risk reporting is improved. The SpendLab Analyzer can be used independently of the ERP system (SAP, JD-Edwards, Oracle) used by the organization.

More info and contact information here.

 

Webinar Recording: The importance of cash management during the crisis | the impact of the pandemic

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| 31-03-2021 | treasuryXL | Cashforce |ACT

Rewatch ACT’s session ‘The importance of Cash management during the crisis: the impact of the Pandemic’ with David Shinkins (Barclays), James Marshall (Virgin Media), Hailey Laverty Hotels & Resorts) & Nicolas Christiaen from our Partner Cashforce.

 

 

 

Centralising Payments and Fraud Management with Kyriba – Şişecam

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30-03-2021 | treasuryXL | Kyriba |

Şişecam is a Turkey-based, multi-national glass manufacturer that wanted to centralise payments, get better visibility of the group’s accounts and reduce the potential for fraud. Kyriba helped them achieved all this – and more.

Barış Gokalp, Head of Treasury at Şişecam explains the background to the project: “when I joined Şişecam, it was very decentralised, with each company managing its own banking operation. We had too many banks, over 60 companies and multiple ERP systems. After 2013 we did a lot of M&A so there were various different ERPs. There was also a lots of connection types, including SFTP, fax and email, with no standardisation. Each payment operation had its own route, which made it hard to manage.”

“We realised that first we had to solve the connectivity issue with the banks. We figured out that we were spending a lot of time answering how much money do we have and also on the banking operations for our payments.”

Levent Coskuner, Managing Partner of ELC Strategy which advised Şişecam, explains the approach taken: “we knew the internal culture and structure of financing at Şişecam, so we were looking for the best global solution. Between his arrival at Şişecam and the end of 2018, Barış and I visited various countries to understand the different options. It was very important that the solution was very scalable and secure – security was one of the main issues. And given that they have multiple ERPs, we needed a standardised approach. Kyriba has the number one SaaS solution.”

The project had several key elements. “The focus was on enabling payments for ERP systems, centralising and securing them,” says Nik Romano, Head of Emerging Markets at Kyriba. “But they also wanted to gain visibility into the group’s bank accounts. Şişecam selected us as much on the capability of our technology from an application perspective as on the capability to enable connections across so many banks and so many jurisdictions.”

When the Şişecam team looked at Kyriba’s references they realised that a lot of companies have worries about transactions, and that was one of the key points in their decision.

“The number of transactions is not important to us, rather the variety of those transactions. We saw that our geographic reach – Kyriba’s and Şişecam’s – matched, and when we visited Kyriba clients to get references the feedback was marvellous!” says Gokalp.

Tackling supply chain finance was not on the initial agenda, but when the Şişecam team visited a Kyriba client in France they realised that they could also use the treasury management system for other parts of their treasury activities. So although they began with account visibility and payment operations, they realised that they could also include supply chain finance, FX management, cash flow management and cash flow forecasting.

“As the treasury director I saw that we could manage all our treasury activities on one platform with many banks, many countries and many companies. Perfect!” says Gokalp.

“We began to go live with the various countries within the Şişecam group, and by the end of 2021 we will have finished that. All the connections will be established and all the payments will be done via Kyriba. We have also begun to sort out the supply chain finance issues and we will plug the banks into our supply chain finance because we know that a company’s strength comes from its suppliers. In addition, we know that we can manage our FX position via Kyriba. So we will look at that and, if we can manage to finalise things, we will also use Kyriba’s cash flow management module by the end of next year,” says Gokalp.

Gokalp agrees that fraud was the key motivation for the group’s top management. “As all treasurers know, we need to do the checks before the money leaves,” he says. “You should establish in your workflow rules, so that if there is some ‘noise’ around a payment, you can stop it. We have begun to follow where the money is going and when it will reach us. I hope that by the end of the next year we will be fully digitalised, which is one of the objectives of our organisation. The payment file will come from the ERP and no one will be able to touch it, it goes directly via Kyriba.”

Full digitisation means that when a file is created it goes directly and securely to Kyriba, through the approval process and on to the bank. The ERP and the accountants can see in a couple of minutes what has happened to the payment and, if there is a rejection or some other problem that is also reflected back to the ERP system. This is a fully integrated process.

As with so many clients, the Covid crisis showed Şişecam just what their new system could do.

Gokalp explains: “When the pandemic hit we were initially using Kyriba with five companies in Turkey, but in two days all the companies were able to use Kyriba for payments. So the need for the people to come into the office for the signatures and approvals – that was all removed. That was a big credibility boost for the project as well. Before, it was very hard to make a payment. You sent it to the bank and then it arrived, or, if it didn’t you just sent it again. But now all this is done in 10 minutes max.”

“At first some people internally were worried about this project, but when they understood what the project entailed, they too wanted to be part of it.”

About Şişecam

Şişecam is one of the biggest glass manufacturers in the world, based in Turkey but with operations in the Eurozone, Russia, India and Egypt. The group manufactures all sorts of glass – table glass, glass packaging, flat glass and automotive glass – and also produces the chemicals used to produce glass. It has 20 companies worldwide and is working with approximately 60 banks.

Bankensurvey: (klein)banken willen samenwerken op één platform (Dutch Item)

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29-03-2021 | treasuryXL | Enigma Consulting |

Enigma Consulting heeft in 2020 rondom het thema outsourcing een survey afgenomen onder vijftien in Nederland gevestigde klein- en middelgrote banken. Het betreft wholesale- en retailbanken, private banken en spaarbanken. De resultaten staan gepubliceerd in het rapport outsourcing.



Transitie vraagt om investeringen in infrastructuur

Door ontwikkelingen, zoals wet- en regelgeving, Instant Payments, Open Banking, en de toenemende concurrentie van fintech’s, bigtech’s en challengerbanken, maakt de bankensector een enorme transformatie door. Dit vereist een voortdurende investering in de bancaire infrastructuur.

Het bedrijfsmodel van banken staat zwaar onder druk. Zeker de klein en middelgrote banken zijn op zoek naar kostenverlaging en consolidatie. Door samen te werken kunnen banken een kostenbesparingen realiseren en de continue verandering het hoofd bieden. De resultaten van de survey laten zien dat banken outsourcing zeker als oplossingsrichting onderkennen:

Outsourcing leidt tot de mogelijkheid om samen te werken en het creëren van partnerships. Niet alleen met solution providers, maar ook met gelijkgestemde banken. Met als doel samen te werken aan een standaard infrastructuur waar meerdere partijen gebruik van kunnen maken. De aangesloten partijen op het platform dragen gezamenlijk bij aan de markt gedreven ontwikkelingen.

In een wereld waarin klanten steeds meer verwachten van de digitale services van hun bank, is het noodzakelijk voor kleine en middelgrote banken om mee te gaan met de enorme transformatie die de bankensector ondergaat. Klanten verwachten namelijk hetzelfde niveau van digitalisering als dat zij in het dagelijks leven ervaren. Het gemak en de snelheid waarmee eten online besteld kan worden, moet ook in de bancaire dienstverlening als standaard gelden.

Klantervaring centraal

Outsourcing kan deze klantverwachting vervullen. Door ontzorging via outsourcing kan de focus gericht worden op specifieke klantdiensten of integratie met diensten van derde partijen. De klantervaring komt op deze manier centraal te staan. Een mindset die voor kleine banken misschien wel noodzakelijk is om te overleven.

Ondanks de voordelen van outsourcing worden ook een aantal nadelen genoemd. Bijna alle banken geven aan dat ze bang zijn om controle te verliezen door de grote afhankelijkheid die ontstaat door outsourcing. Als bank ben je aangewezen op de roadmap van de solution provider. Daar staat tegenover dat door gezamenlijk op te trekken in partnership met een provider er juist grotere invloed kan worden uitgeoefend.

Banken eisen vaak specifieke aanpassingen in hun core banking en betalingsinfrastructuur. Als gevolg hiervan ontstaat er een wildgroei van aanpassingen op ‘standaard’ core-banking producten. Zo lang banken dit blijven doen, is er geen ruimte voor gezamenlijke productontwikkeling en zal onderhoud intensief zijn en hoge kosten met zich meebrengen. Juist een gezamenlijke ontwikkeling kan er voor zorgen dat er één standaard oplossing komt voor de Nederlandse markt.

Minder flexibel

Ook geven banken aan minder flexibel te zijn wanneer ze hun core-banking outsourcen. Bij veranderingen in de organisatiestructuur of ontwikkelingen in de bankensector kan er niet meer geschakeld worden naar andere of betere software. Daartegenover staat dat een bank ook nu voor core-banking een lange termijn visie hanteert. Een systeem wordt geselecteerd om een decennium, en waarschijnlijk langer, mee te gaan. Daarom is het van groot belang om een toekomst vaste (modulaire) oplossing te kiezen. Sterker nog: banken kunnen hier beter kiezen voor een aanbieder die zich opstelt als partner, die proactief de ontwikkelingen volgt in plaats van louter een leverancier te kiezen.

”Samenwerking, outsourcing en partnering op een modulair core-banking platform lijkt de toekomst voor banken”

Veel banken ervaren dezelfde veranderingen in de markt. Iedere bank analyseert de impact van deze veranderingen individueel. Ook banken met verschillende core-banking systemen kunnen gezamenlijk deze analyse fase doorlopen. Op deze manier komen banken meer met elkaar in contact. Het gemeenschappelijk analyseren van de impact van een verandering is het spreekwoordelijke ‘low hanging fruit’, als eerste stap richting samenwerking binnen het core-banking domein. Een volgende stap is het collectief ontwikkelen en gebruiken van generieke core-banking producten, maar de survey wijst ook uit dat banken willen samenwerken bij CCD en AML, reconciliatie en de Sparen administratie.

Het vervangen van een standaard core banking systeem vergt een serieuze investering en commitment. Een gezamenlijk core-banking landschap moet zodanig worden ingericht dat modulaire producten kunnen worden aangesloten en banken makkelijk kunnen instappen met een deel van hun infrastructuur.

Samenvattend

Samenwerking, outsourcing en partnering op een modulair core-banking platform lijkt de toekomst voor banken. Dit wordt door de huidige stand van de technologie meer dan mogelijk gemaakt. Dit betekent wel een paradigma verandering bij zowel banken als leveranciers. Om gezamenlijk tot een oplossing te komen moeten alle partijen zich er bewust van zijn dat langdurig commitment en een lange termijn visie vereist zijn.

Voor een totaaloverzicht van de uitkomsten, download de bankensurvey hier.