How businesses in the healthcare & medical industry can improve their FX outcomes

18-03-2021 | treasuryXL | XE |

Having a secure, reliable and cost effective international payment provider as well as the tools and expertise available to support you to weather market volatility is crucial.

Any business that deals with foreign currency, no matter the size or the industry, has the potential to be impacted by the ups and downs of the foreign currency markets. A change in exchange rates from one day to the next could potentially increase importing costs, increase capital expenditure costs, or increase overseas investment costs.

If you are a business in the healthcare and medical industry, preparing for market volatility and knowing how to respond to shifts in currency values is critical. Otherwise, you could end up paying more than you projected on goods or services, which can have a detrimental impact on your bottom line.

Whether you’re importing medical devices and distributing them to local pharmacies or healthcare providers, or purchasing chemicals as part of the medicine production process, having a secure, reliable and cost effective international payment provider as well as the tools and expertise available to support you to weather market volatility is crucial.

How can your healthcare business address foreign currency risk?

Working with a knowledgeable, experienced foreign exchange provider is the first step to safeguarding your business against ups and downs of the currency markets. No one can predict the future, but an FX provider can help you prepare for potential volatility, and will have the tools and guidance to help you respond in the event of unexpected shifts.

Opening an Xe Business account will allow you to take advantage of our full suite of products and services, so you can:

  • Protect costs for imports;

  • Save time through accurate forecasting and quick and easy payments;

  • Save money with cheaper rates and no fees (compared to banks).

Learn More

How can Xe reduce foreign currency risk for your business?

We understand that no two businesses are the same. We work individually with each business in order to identify where their needs lie and what their risk exposures are, and develop an international payments and risk management strategy tailored to their operations.

We offer a range of products and services, including:

  • Spot transfers. Purchase currency and send your international payment at the current rate. If you need to make a quick payment, you can do it on the spot in just a few minutes.

  • Market orders. Identify a target exchange rate, and we’ll initiate your transfer when that rate is reached. If your payment isn’t time-sensitive, you can avoid potential volatility in the future.

  • Forward contracts. Lock in today’s exchange rate and send the payment on a set future date. If you have an upcoming transfer and don’t want to worry about the markets fluctuating, take care of it now for peace of mind later.

  • Risk management. Don’t have the time or the resources to devise a risk management strategy on your own? With our 25 years of experience in the currency markets and dedicated team of currency experts, we can help you to strategise the right one for your business.

How to get started

Signing up for an Xe Business account is completely free, and will take just a few minutes. Interested in learning what the process entails? Contact our expert Maurits Houthoff for quick and transparant information.

Webinar recording: Cashforce & TIS are Partnering Up to Deliver Best-of-Breed Technology

| 17-03-2021 | treasuryXL | Cashforce | TIS

Cashforce & TIS are partnering up to deliver best-of-breed technology. Watch the webinar recording with Nicolas Christiaen and Joerg Wiemer and get to know more about this best-of-breed approach and how this partnership can help you tackle your challenges in cash flow forecasting and corporate payments.

 

 

 

5 concrete tips for preventing Payment Fraud

| 16-03-2021 | treasuryXL | Nomentia |

Payment fraud has become a real and permanent threat for companies of all sizes. No company can afford to close their eyes on the risks – fraudsters target all industries, and large and small businesses alike. It is the eleventh hour to start focusing on the safety of your payment process if you want to avoid financial damage.

The good news is that the fraudsters prefer easy targets, so even raising awareness on the topic in your organization is a step in the right direction. With this blog, I want to share 5 concrete tips for preventing payment fraud and improving the safety of your organization’s payment process.

Get rid of risky task combinations

Do you know who has access to your payments at each stage of the process? Risky task combinations may have formed overtime without anyone noticing that a single person can, for instance, create a new payment in the system and approve it to be paid. Overly broad user rights leave unnecessary room for both malpractice and costly mistakes. Applying strong user rights management – the four-eye principle, for example – is a quick way to reduce the risks. You should require double approval also on the changes made in the vendor master data, as well as user rights.

Build your payment process on best practices

Design a secure payment process with best practices approach. Establishing a “no PO, no pay” principle where invoices are approved for payment only if they have a purchase order number or if they are paid to registered suppliers supports preventing payment fraud. You can improve the safety of manual payments when you utilize the ready-made templates of a payment system and demand multi-factor identification from the person who makes the spontaneous request for payment. Many CFO attacks could have been prevented if the origin of an email payment request had been confirmed via another channel.

Automate and focus on end-to-end safety

You would be surprised if you knew how many companies have gaps in their payment process, creating payment fraud risk. For example, if the payment file batches are waiting to be uploaded to bank in a folder or file share, it leaves the data open for tampering even if the process up to that point had been secure. Eliminating manual phases through automation is one of the best ways to increase safety as it reduces not only the risk of fraud but also the risk of mistakes.

Improve transparency

Standardized and harmonized practices build up transparency, which makes spotting and preventing payment fraud easier. Create a uniform, company-wide process for handling payments and make sure that there are no routes round it. By centralizing all your bank connections to a single system, you will take transparency to another level, and, in addition, you are able to better control the risk related to data transfer and system management.

Keep an eye on deviations

It is not rare that payment fraud is discovered only by accident. As a part of good risk management, you need to focus also on the measures that help you spot the fraudulent payments that manage to go through your defenses. Keep an eye on payments that are going to unknown bank accounts or that are made outside normal payment schedule. Your payment system should support you in risk management and filter out deviations from your payment flows before they are paid. Machine learning and artificial intelligence will soon create new possibilities for recognizing and managing deviations in accounts payable in a more real-time and automated fashion.

Preventing payment fraud in an ever-changing threat landscape requires that you take a comprehensive and proactive approach. I recommend that you download and read our e-book, where we take a look at this topic in detail, and provide you with all the different perspectives a corporate payment process should be examined from. In the e-book, you will find best practices and concrete advice you need to keep your organization from falling victim to payment fraud.

About Nomentia

Nomentia is a Nordic powerhouse for global cash management. We believe in a world in which businesses can make the right decisions no matter how unpredictable the times are. Our SaaS-based platform offers solutions for cash forecasting and visibility, global payments with bank connectivity, reconciliation, in-house banking, guarantees, and FX dealing. We serve 2,300+ clients in over 100 countries processing more than 200 billion euros annually. Cash is king!

Meet Jukka Sallinen

 

 

How to anticipate Liquidity risks to secure the Cash Flow

15-03-2021 | treasuryXL | Kyriba |

For the past 10 years we have lived with an overabundance of liquidity. In most people’s minds, abundant liquidity means constant availability. But the subprime crisis, the European debt crisis and now the COVID pandemic have shown the opposite to be true.

In a world of extreme volatility, liquidity flows can be interrupted overnight. And for financial managers therein lies the paradox. Despite its overabundance, it has never been more crucial to secure, diversify, monitor and optimise liquidity.

Prepare for the unthinkable.

In this environment, liquidity is obviously strategic, but above all it must be seen as a volatile and fragile resource, especially vulnerable to market disruptions whose occurrence and scope are unforeseeable by definition as well as by their very nature. The health crisis showed us that nothing is safe from a complete, abrupt halt, not even cash flow from operations, across every sector.

CFOs must now prepare their companies for the unthinkable! They will need to spend more and more time and energy to activate every possible source of liquidity by monitoring prices, availability, term, currencies and security packages for each of these sources. They will do this with a constant focus on optimisation, and above all must be ready to make snap decisions about sources that have run dry. It’s a massive undertaking. In a world of extreme volatility, Active Liquidity Management will make tomorrow’s leaders stand out from the crowd.

 

Contact Kyriba directly for more information.

Interbank Payments Transactions (Dutch Item)

10-03-2021 | treasuryXL | Enigma Consulting |

The playing field of interbank settlement and settlement of international payments is being overhauled. In Europe, Target2, T2S and TIPS are being consolidated in a new platform. The international payment and reporting messages between banks will be switched from MT to ISO20022. Now SWIFT comes with a new Transaction Management Platform for international payments and securities transactions. That means a lot of work for institutions using the Target systems and SWIFT. Enigma Consulting can help you analyze and implement the changes.

Target Consolidatie

De huidige Target2, T2S en TIPS-systemen van de Europese centrale banken worden ondergebracht in een nieuw platform voor Europees interbancair betalingsverkeer. Naast deze drie systemen maken onder meer een centrale opzet van het liquiditeitsbeheer (CLM), centraal beheer van gemeenschappelijke gegevens en een geharmoniseerde interface met de buitenwereld (ESMIG) deel uit van het nieuwe platform. En het berichtenverkeer van en naar Target2 migreert van MT naar ISO20022. Al deze veranderingen krijgen hun beslag in een big bang implementatie per 21 november 2022.

Neemt uw instelling direct of indirect deel aan één van de Target-systemen? Dan moet u vóór die tijd uw processen en IT-systemen aanpassen aan de nieuwe werkwijze, berichtenstandaard en interface. Daarbij moet u voldoen aan de verschillende mijlpalen die de Europese Centrale Bank heeft gedefinieerd.

Migratie naar ISO20022

Het interbancaire berichtenverkeer in het kader van internationale betalingen via SWIFT migreert van de MT naar de ISO20022 (MX) standaard. Het gaat hierbij met name om de betaalberichten uit de MT1- en MT2-serie en de rapportageberichten uit de MT9-serie. Het gebruik van de MX-berichten en de vertaalregels tussen MT en MX worden in goede banen geleid door de Cross Border Payments and Reporting Plus Group (CBPR+) van de banken en SWIFT. De migratie zelf wordt uitgesmeerd over de periode november 2022 tot en met november 2025.

Initieert of verwerkt uw instelling internationale betalingen via SWIFT? Of verstuurt of ontvangt uw instelling rekening- of transactierapportages via SWIFT? Dan moeten uw IT-systemen aan de ISO20022 formaten en regels worden aangepast. En omdat de technische aansluiting op het SWIFT-netwerk met de overstap op MX-berichten ook wijzigt, moet die ook worden aangepast.

Hoe kunnen wij u helpen?

Onze interbancair betalingsverkeer experts kunnen u helpen bij het analyseren van de impact en begeleiden van de implementatie van de wijzigingen in het kader van de Target-consolidatie en de migratie van MT naar ISO20022. U kunt daarbij denken aan het volgende:

Target-consolidatie
  • Adviseren over nieuwe opzet van rekeningen bij de Europese Centrale Bank.
  • Analyseren en inrichten van de processen in het kader van betalingen en liquiditeitsbeheer.
  • Analyseren van de impact van de nieuwe ISO20022 berichten voor uw instelling én voor uw klanten.
  • Workshops over het verandergebied, de processen en de berichtenstandaard.
Migratie naar ISO20022
  • Analyseren van de impact van de nieuwe ISO20022 berichten voor uw instelling én voor uw klanten.
  • Adviseren over en analyseren van de impact van het nieuwe Transaction Management Platform van SWIFT.
  • Workshops over het verandergebied, de processen en de berichtenstandaard.

Geïnteresseerd of wilt u meer weten? Neem dan contact op met één van onze consultants.

Rent a Treasurer, Plans & Success

| 03-03-2020 | treasuryXL | Pieter de Kiewit

You might remember our previous blogs about the Rent a Treasurer. In this joint effort with Treasurer Search, we make high calibre treasury expertise available for organisations with treasury exposure without a specialist on board. Treasurer Search is in constant communication with the treasury labour market and knows who has what expertise and is available. treasuryXL has a wider network that includes CFOs of mid-sized companies and a very strong communication machine. Combining both enables the Rent a Treasurer service.

What we notice in our market research is that treasury is not well known by these CFOs, so they do not put it on their priority list. But CFOs do understand quickly the upside when speaking with and learning from a treasurer. Often not wanting extra headcount is mentioned as a reason not to act upon treasury opportunities. And many specialized treasury consultants are a better match with multi-billion corporates and costly. So mid-sized companies often rely on bankers and auditors. But many bankers focus too much on revenue and the knowledge of auditors is often not deep enough.

Currently we work with a core team of eight bringing the Rent a Treasurer concept to the next level. Six team members cover various subsets of treasury tasks and complement each other. Kendra represents treasuryXL and I work on behalf of Treasurer Search. We are the support. Our goal is to organise more meetings with CFOs and help them successfully save costs, mitigate risk and create opportunities through appropriate treasury solutions. We tell interesting stories, on a regular basis, to decision makers who might be interested and we will increasingly do so.

It gives me great pleasure to inform you that one of the team members,  Niki van Zanten, currently works as a Rent a Treasurer on two different assignments where FX risk has the most prominent focus. With the first client, he has been able to save substantially on cost already in his first week. Niki is the perfect example of an expert who learnt in the Champions League, with Cisco & Philips, and applies his knowledge helping mid-sized companies.

If you want to know more about Rent a Treasurer or introduce us to your business network, please let me know. I am convinced many more can benefit from good treasury. We will keep you updated.

 

 

Pieter de Kiewit

Owner at Treasurer Search

 

 

 

Corporates: Caveat IBOR and Build-Up Your IBOR Knowledge!

01-03-2021 | treasuryXL | Enigma Consulting |

Last year November we published the article ‘Corporates: Caveat IBOR!’ regarding the IBOR phase out and the impact on corporates. Let’s have a look why today’s corporate treasurer should be even more aware of IBOR interest rate benchmarks.

It is highly likely that your organisation will be affected by the IBOR transition. Most corporate organisations underestimate the impact, thinking that the ‘only’ thing that will change is a base rate and its calculation method. Before you join their ranks, take some time to reflect on the following:

The IBOR will cease to exist, starting on the 31st December 2021 and be replaced by Risk-Free Rates (RFRs) with a different basis for calculation:

  • These changes will impact financial (e.g. bond, (intercompany) loan, (multi-currency) credit facility) contracts as well as commercial contracts with an IBOR related ‘late payment clause’
  • This in turn will impact processes in the Treasury functions, with knock-on effects to supporting departments, Legal, IT systems, accounting, and tax reporting to name just a few
  • IBOR transition is progressing at a different pace across jurisdictions and financial products (e.g. loans, bonds, and derivatives), adding to the complexity of managing the transition
  • The Working Group on Sterling Risk-Free Reference Rates (RFRWG) published the following milestones regarding GBP LIBOR:
    • By end-Q1 2021, all legacy GBP LIBOR contracts expiring after end 2021 that can be actively converted need to be identified, and progress active conversion where viable through to completion by end-Q3 2021
    • Active steps to enable a shift of volumes from GBP LIBOR to SONIA in non-linear derivative markets: by end-Q2 2021, initiation of new GBP LIBOR linked non-linear derivatives that expire after the end of 2021 will be ceased; and, by end-Q3 2021, complete active conversion

The good news is that there is still time to assess the impact of the pending IBOR changes on your organisation and to act upon it if needs be. The sooner you have a plan for the potential consequences for your organisation, the sooner you will be able to mitigate these. This understanding will also give you more leverage in the coming discussions with your bank(s).

Moreover, the IBOR phase out may bring a golden opportunity for corporates to re-evaluate the current contract agreements and look for better deals. Consider this: during the IBOR migration contracts are in fact ‘renegotiated’ and banks will need to come up with a new offer. Will you take that offer as a corporate client? That all depends on your level of understanding and preparation.

What should you do to prepare?

As the deadline approaches, you will need to know your level of exposure and impact in order to prevent surprises. What will the impact of the IBOR transition be on your TMS and ERP systems, your credit facilities, bank loans, cash pooling, bonds, ISDA agreements and intercompany agreements? What impacts will these have on your processes and supporting systems? Which complexities will need to be managed?

 

 

Having this information at hand will enable you to be a proper sparring partner for your banks when they renegotiate contract terms.

Depending on the complexity of your contracts, the IBOR phase out could substantially affect your corporate organisation. Prevent unnecessary loss by preparing yourself, following this five-step approach:

 

  • IBOR phase out knowledge build-up

Corporates should start to build-up their knowledge regarding the IBOR phase-out and get up-to-speed with developments related to different kind of products and RFRs in order to be able to assess the IBOR phase-out impact. Each corporate organisation has a different situation and a variety of financial contracts. Complexity depends on the type of business. A larger organisation active across multiple regions in the world with more complex non-Euro instruments will be impacted higher than a smaller organisation that only is active locally within the Eurozone. Thorough knowledge about IBOR is a key starting point to assess the impact on your organisation and to be able to assess, plan and implement the migration to alternative reference rates.

  • Assess impact

The second step you should take is to analyse the IBOR related contracts in use throughout your organisation. Determine which contracts have an IBOR related component and the size of the exposure. Once you have assessed the complexity of your IBOR related contracts, analyse the impact on related areas (ranging from Tax and Legal to IT systems, and procedures, reporting, accounting (e.g. hedge-accounting), and the like).

  • Become a prepared discussion partner for your bank(s)

The third step is to be prepared for a call with your bank to discuss an RFR offering! The magnitude of change is well-recognised by banks and financial institutions, and they are demonstrating an increasing sense of urgency to address contracts maturing after 2021. More and more newly issued IBOR related products by your bank(s) will refer to a new alternative reference rate during 2021.

  • Plan actions

Knowing the alternative RFRs is an important input on creating a detailed action plan. Define a project team governance to manage this action plan and the status of the transition across different areas, business lines, and geographical locations. In particular, take care to ensure external resource availability regarding e.g. Legal counselling and system provider experts, as demand for these specialists will rapidly increase as the IBOR transition deadline approaches.

  • Act and implement

Step five is the implementation of your action plan throughout the affected areas of your organisation. In this ‘Act’ phase it is important to maintain the conversation with external parties, such as banks and system providers. It is also of vital importance to support the implementation across all relevant business lines and functions, maintaining support for go-live readiness in line with the defined action plan and deadlines.

A golden opportunity starts with IBOR knowledge build-up

Enigma Consulting supports you in knowledge build-up by providing ‘tailor-made’ workshops in order to discuss the impact on your corporate organisation related to different RFRs for different products based on your specific situation and to help you to prepare and become a discussion partner with your bank.

IBOR may well be a golden opportunity, but it is up to you as a corporate treasurer to seize it by acting rather sooner than later! Corporates: Caveat IBOR and build up your knowledge!

If you are interested in how we can help you to build-up your knowledge and to assess your IBOR related contract complexity or if you want to understand how we can support your corporate organisation in the IBOR phase out transition, you can contact us on:

[email protected] or look at www.enigmaconsulting.nl

Daniel Pluta

 

 

 

Kyriba Webinar: How Connectivity-as-a-Service Can Help In ERP Migration

25-02-2021 | treasuryXL | Kyriba |

4th March • 2pm GMT • 3pm CET

In this webinar Kyriba and Deloitte will discuss some of the challenges and time constraints faced in bank connectivity and outline how Kyriba’s Connectivity-As-A-Service can accelerate global banking connectivity projects by more than 80%.

The agenda will follow:

  • The Connectivity-as-a-Service challenges
  • The Kyriba Connectivity Network
  • A case study on implementation with Deloitte

REGISTER NOW to understand more of the issues related to cost-control, deployment, security and bank connectivity when embarking on large-scale ERP cloud migration projects.

Date:

March 4, 2pm GMT/ 3pm CET

Contact:

Nomentia Webinar: Payment Templates

| 15-02-2021 | treasuryXL | OpusCapita |

Live Demo: Unleash your payments with payment templates

Maybe not quite unleash but the better word might be superpower. Because payment templates are truly what will take your set-up to the next level. We are continuing our popular live demo webinar set-up where our solution managers will provide a quick deep dive into one topic and how this is working in our solution.


Payment templates allow you to publish templates for manual payment that you can use to process payments.

In this webinar we will show you how you can:

  • Lock and hide fields, and mark the desired fields required. You can also define whether a section is automatically expanded or not when a payment template is selected.
  • What type of security settings you can and possibly should set up for payment templates.

And on top of that we will provide a practical application to how those templates can make your daily life easier.

When?

  • February 18th, 2021
  • 13:00 CET / 14:00 EET

Who should attend?

Cash Managers, Treasurers, and anyone looking to optimize their payment processes.

Meet the speaker

Jouni Round

Jouni Kirjola

Jouni is Solution Manager at Nomentia and has over 10 years of experience in corporate cash management and has deep expertise in cash forecasting, payment factories and in-house banking, and process development. Previously Jouni has worked in product management, consulting and R&D.

Register Here

About Nomentia

Nomentia is a Nordic powerhouse for global cash management. We believe in a world in which businesses can make the right decisions no matter how unpredictable the times are. Our SaaS-based platform offers solutions for cash forecasting and visibility, global payments with bank connectivity, reconciliation, in-house banking, guarantees, and FX dealing. We serve 2,300+ clients in over 100 countries processing more than 200 billion euros annually. Cash is king!

Nomentia – Treasury Trends 2021

| 10-02-2021 | treasuryXL | Nomentia |

Recently, Nomentia held a webinar about the key Trends in Treasury and Cash Management. The recording of this webinar “Treasury Trends 2021” is now available for you on demand. Feel free to rewatch it as much as you like!

Watch The Webinar

About Nomentia

Nomentia is a Nordic powerhouse for global cash management. We believe in a world in which businesses can make the right decisions no matter how unpredictable the times are. Our SaaS-based platform offers solutions for cash forecasting and visibility, global payments with bank connectivity, reconciliation, in-house banking, guarantees, and FX dealing. We serve 2,300+ clients in over 100 countries processing more than 200 billion euros annually. Cash is king!