De Cobase Quick Scan voor Treasurers

| 18-06-2019 | Cobase | treasuryXL

Bedrijven met bankrekeningen bij verschillende banken hebben vaak met veel inefficiëntie te maken. Ze moeten verschillende bankportalen gebruiken om met hun banken of andere financiële dienstverleners te werken en vaak ook meerdere ERP connecties onderhouden. Hoe meer banken en rekeningen, hoe complexer het wordt.

De oplossing

Cobase biedt hiervoor een oplossing. Het multibank platform geeft via één punt online toegang tot alle bankrekeningen en andere financiële producten en diensten bij veel banken en financiële dienstverleners.

Cobase Quick Scan

Regelmatig krijgt Cobase vragen over wat de oplossing precies inhoudt en wat de Multibanking oplossing kan betekenen voor ondernemingen en de dagelijkse werkzaamheden van de treasurer. Daarom biedt Cobase nu een telefonische Quick Scan aan voor treasurers.

De belangrijkste features van het Cobase platform zijn de centrale Payment Hub, Cash Management en Treasury modules. Ook de Inter Company Loan Administration module die inhouse banking ondersteunt en de Robo Assistant worden steeds verder doorontwikkeld.

Met de gratis telefonische Quick Scan krijg je al snel een eerste inzicht of er met een Multibank platform efficiëntie te behalen is. En wat houdt dat in, een quick scan? Simpel, via een telefonische intake wordt gekeken of een Multibanking oplossing interessant kan zijn.

Zie voor meer info: cobase.com/nl/quickscan

The challenges of liquidity planning and forecasting

| 17-06-2019 | treasuryXL | Cashforce |

For more than a decade, liquidity and cash flow forecasting have remained in the top three challenges for CFOs and treasurers globally. This begs the question: why has this been a perennial challenge for so long? The reason: treasury operations today are, for the most part, a series of unintegrated systems, spreadsheets and silos between groups and other departments.

Companies are often faced with multiple ERPs, many entities, and different currencies. These make the task of managing liquidity a major challenge, not to mention a significant manual effort involving many people. The result: lots of time spent gathering and validating data while still not having a full, transparent view into the numbers. The volume, variety, velocity and veracity of data generated each day has made traditional analysis – using spreadsheets, for example – obsolete. It is just not possible to manually aggregate and analyse that much data with sufficient speed to be able to gain insight, and then turn that insight into action. To be able to do so you need the right set of tools.

WHAT SHOULD A TREASURER OR CFO BE ASKING THEMSELVES?

  • Can you identify all your sources of data that you need to make a cash flow forecast? Eg ERP (how many do you have, are they all on the same instance), CRM, bank statements, trend analysis, manual data (such as budgets).
  • How often do you refresh your short-term/mid-term cash forecast? (Daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly, or I don’t make a cash forecast).
  • How do you ensure no mistakes happen in your data capturing/consolidation?
  • How do you incentivise your subsidiaries? Local subsidiaries and users typically download information from their ERP, and upload in other types of files to HQ, or in SharePoint, or they will just send Excel files from all over the globe to HQ, which means it’s 100% manual. There’s no real alignment of the processes across subsidiaries and no audit trail at the local level.

WHAT TO CONSIDER?

  • Companies should ensure their information is system-based. In other words, they have full integration with their ERP, so they don’t have to manually download data (it should flow automatically).
  • Any augmentation of data should have an audit trail so that, ultimately, the group treasurer can see who did what, and when they did it.
  • Automate the process and deploy alert functionality, such as reminders for subsidiaries to post their local forecast, and for the group treasurer to look for it.
  • Ensure bank connectivity to enable comparison of actuals with forecast figures.

I HAVE THE DATA. NOW WHAT?

With this data, treasurers should now be able to answer these four key questions: what happened; why did it happen; what will happen; and what should be done?

  • Descriptive analytics answers the question, “what happened?” This is the most basic form of big data analytics, and provides a picture of past events.
  • Diagnostic analytics, “why did it happen?” Diagnostic analytics enables you to perform root cause analysis and use that information to prevent future repetition of events.
  • Predictive analytics, “what will happen?” Predictive analytics uses advanced algorithms – often with artificial intelligence and machine learning – to forecast future events.
  • Prescriptive analytics, “what should I do?” Prescriptive analytics tells you what the best steps are to achieve a specific result. Prescriptive analytics requires advanced machine learning capabilities.

 

 

Treasurer Test: The first results analysis and observations

| 14-06-2019 | by Kendra Keydeniers |

Do people with many years of treasury experience have more relevant knowledge than those with less experience?

Are treasurers introvert people?

Are detail-oriented treasurers more knowledgeable?

Recently 100 test candidates completed the Treasurer Test, 75 of them working as corporate treasurers, 25 are working in positions related to the corporate treasury field. We asked all of them to take the test in order to build a strong and focused assessment tool. As an added result, we now have an extremely interesting dataset. It is our intention to share our analysis and observations about this dataset with you. Currently we are communicating with data and other scientist in order to present sound research.

Analysis & Observations

What do we have? We have demographic information, the results on Treasury Technical Questions and Personality Profiles (Big5 theory). Therefore, let’s elaborate on the combination peer group – knowledge a bit to give you an idea about where we are working on.

The technical questions are divided in four groups:

  1. Corporate Finance
  2. Risk Management
  3. Cash Management
  4. Treasury Miscellaneous.

The testees are divided in four different experienced peer groups:

  1. No Experience
  2. 0-2 years
  3. 3-8 years
  4. 9 + years

The first quick analysis shows that there is a direct correlation between experience and knowledge in Risk Management: more experience equals more knowledge. Interesting enough, this correlation completely lacks in Corporate Finance, even testees without treasury experience do not score significantly less in this category. Furthermore, there is an indication that the knowledge level in the categories Cash Management and Treasury Miscellaneous is more or less the same for all groups. There is only a significantly difference between the corporate treasury experienced people compared to the Non-Treasurers.

Based upon these observations, we will ask the scientists and industry experts to work on the following hypothesizes (and on others of course):

  • Cash Management and Treasury Miscellaneous tasks are relatively easy to learn and/or a substantial part of the tasks of a young treasurer
  • The complexity of Risk Management is not easy to understand quickly and takes time to comprehend
  • Corporate Treasury is such a small part of the tasks of a treasurer that knowledge is not part of his/her working knowledge.

Given that we just started, we are very much open for your questions and suggestions. What questions do you want to get answered based upon the dataset? Thanks in advance for your input.

On behalf of Team Treasurer Test,

Kendra Keydeniers
Community & Partner Manager at treasuryXL

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Webinar: Optimize your payment processing security

| 13-6-2019 | BELLIN |

How to optimize your payment processing security via administrative control

This webinar installment takes a deep dive into the need for a centralized payments platform that maintains a hyper-focus on security. Join in as we discuss, how the essential synergy between technical security specifications and administrative controls creates optimally safe and efficient processes.

Webinar start: 27 June 2019 | 16:00 CEST
Webinar run time: approx. 20 min

Register here

Katja FranzPresenter
Katja Franz, Senior Treasury Consultant

A graduate of International Business at Fachhochschule Trier and European Business & language at National College of Ireland, Katja Franz has a background in treasury and cash management that has spanned the globe. With experience in banking and reconciliation at Hertz Europe, cash and credit administration at State Street Bank, as payment implementation specialist for Bankhaus August Lenz and as freelance consultant, she has brought success to projects across banking and treasury.

At BELLIN Katja has brought her experience and her passion to the BELLIN treasury consulting team, focusing on treasury management software, project management and process optimization. She is a keen team player who is committed to her work and always eager to learn something new.

About BELLIN

BELLIN is the global leader in technology for corporate banking and treasury. We provide solutions for the financial sector, catering to a range of clients from large multinationals to SMEs and banks. Founded by a treasurer, BELLIN has been championing innovation and out-of-the-box thinking since 1998. With the treasury software tm5 as the centerpiece, BELLIN makes a fundamental difference by offering solutions that zero in on the relationship between corporates and banks and cover everything from payments to FX, cash and risk management. BELLIN is an international company with offices on four continents, powered by a trailblazing fintech spirit and yet firmly rooted in the heritage of German craftsmanship and engineering. BELLIN delights 500 clients and over 80,000 users around the globe.

 

 

New generation treasurer studies at the Vrije Universiteit

| 13-06-2019 | by Pieter de Kiewit |

 

Research in our candidate files, filled with treasury experts and managers, shows that only a small fraction of the population completed a job specific education. Over time I see the level of impact and complexity of corporate treasury rising and an increase in treasury students. As a member of the so-called Curatorium (management board) of the post graduate program “Treasury Management & Corporate Finance”, I consider it my task to let you know about this education. A task I am of course happy to pick up.

 

 

You can get a first overview on the partner page of the Vrije Universiteit on our site and their own Treasury Management and Corporate Finance program page. In the next months we will post blogs with profiles of Register Treasurer (RT) graduates with their motives, experiences and career paths. This will give you better insight in the type of treasurers that are “RT material”. Furthermore we will invite graduates to share thesis and other research summaries that will give you a sample of the level of what you can expect.

Originally the program was in Dutch and aimed at a relatively narrow candidates working in a corporate environment. An important change is that the program now is in English. The student population is a mixture of consultants, bankers, interim managers and experts working in corporate and non-profit environments. As the value of the student peer group has huge impact on the program, this diversity brings a lot extra.

Our continued information flow will hopefully help aspiring students and their managers making a sound decision. The program is not for everybody, we hope to see you soon and find out if you have what it takes.

PS The next information session is at June 26, 2019.


Read stories from graduates who participated the Register Treasurer (RT) program. How does their treasury career look like now?

 

 

 

Pieter de Kiewit
Owner Treasurer Search

 

The (Im)possibility of Liquidity Planning

| 07-06-2019 | BELLIN |

Defining and establishing liquidity planning workflows

Liquidity planning is extremely essential. Companies can survive a certain amount of time without making a profit. However, they will go down within just a few days if they lack the necessary liquidity. Therefore, liquidity planning is high on any treasury’s agenda.

Suddenly, cash was in short supply. Everything ground to a halt. Indeed, the crisis of 2008 has shown how important it is for companies of all sizes and industries to plan with liquid assets. They have to ensure that liquidity fluctuations will be hedged adequately and that times of tight liquidity can be overcome easily. Even long-term profitability cannot always serve as a guarantee that financial markets will be able to provide sufficient liquidity in times of crisis – unless waterproof strategic agreements for financing liquidity shortages were concluded long before the crisis. Liquidity planning is not the same as planning a company’s cash balance. Instead, it forms a basis for strategic hedging decisions in interest, currency and commodity management.

When you begin dealing with liquidity planning in your business, you may be disappointed at first. You will not be able to transfer experience from a balance sheet and profit and loss (P&L) calculation. As a first step, you will need to define liquidity planning and set your treasury’s liquidity planning goals.

Liquidity Planning Versus Cash Management

Liquidity planning serves to illustrate cash flows from all organizational units over time. lt distinguishes between different cash flows, e.g. customer payments and HR payments. The timeline – the underlying planning horizon – usually includes the next six to twelve months. However, certain business models may require planning several years in advance. Never confuse liquidity planning with daily cash management, which focuses only on future balances of individual bank accounts and on creating daily cash forecasts.

The quality of balance sheet and P&L planning is determined by its accuracy. The better the planning, the more accurate the predictions. In the relationship of balance sheet and P&L to liquidity planning, the most important factor is the end result: both plans should result in the same balance at the end of a period. To ascertain this figure alone, a treasury department would not need to create its own liquidity plan. Yet from a treasury perspective, the projected balance is only a means of checking plausibility at the end of the planning horizon. Even the smallest change in an underlying transaction or payment can lead to significant changes in the final result, without affecting overall corporate success or reducing the quality or even sense of liquidity planning as a whole.

A Basis for Hedging

Determining a precise cash balance at the end of a particular planning horizon is not the goal of liquidity planning. Its focus lies on analyzing the differences between an original plan and a rolling plan. The treasury department bases hedging decisions on the original plan. Then, it examines the reliability of these risk management measures. If the treasury finds significant inconsistencies, it can swap or create new foreign exchange deals, negotiate new credit lines or revise the maturities of interest­ bearing transactions.

Liquidity planning is possible. However, it is impossible to plan liquidity in terms of cash on hand at a particular date. With this different goal in mind, liquidity planning becomes the basis for strategic hedging decisions. Only a liquidity plan that is kept up to date can provide information on when to expect cash flows in foreign currency,  when group companies need more liquidity within the  planning period and when excess liquidity will be returned.

Interest and Currency Risk

Liquidity planning is not just about liquid assets, however. Flawed planning can have negative side effects, particularly with regard to financing and related interest. High interest rates can reduce income and reserve assets of companies that are notoriously short, i.e. always in a position of net debt. At the opposite end of the spectrum, companies in a «long» position, i.e. those who have sufficient liquidity to finance their ongoing business, miss out on interest earnings. They rarely consider such opportunity interest.

Interest topics aside, liquidity planning also deals with the somewhat more complex issue of foreign exchange risk. Currency exposure can also affect cash on hand. The media frequently circulate striking examples, although they often wrongly blame derivatives for lack of liquidity or financial losses. In any case, it is important to note that a shift in exchange rates may have a decisive influence on the liquidity development of companies active in countries with foreign currencies.

Liquidity planning made easy in tm5

With tm5’s cash and liquidity management solution, users benefit from real-time liquidity management across your entire corporate group.

Our technology lets you make short-term or long-term liquidity forecasts across all subsidiaries in the corporate group. Be prepared for all eventualities.

  • Make use of scenario planning via detailed financial reports that enable you to stay on top of cash flow management
  • Generate payment forecasts in different transaction currencies
  • Define your individual planning categories
  • Conduct plan comparisons
  • Use your own capacity for effective planning, whether it be a matter of days – or years – into the future
  • Consolidate planning data across all subsidiaries within your corporate group
  • Use a reconciliation matrix to resolve intercompany conflicts
  • Aggregate liquidity planning on a group-wide level
  • Calculate hedging ratios and your company’s refinancing strength based on any possible scenario.

Product: Cash & Liquidity Management

Room to Breathe

No company can exist without liquidity planning: it would be incapacitated within just a few days. Primary liquidity risk factors take a company’s liquidity – its room to breathe. Cash management is essential for short-term planning horizons. In the medium and long term, companies require a liquidity plan, a prerequisite for meaningful risk management, which is cleanly separated from corporate financial planning. These two topic areas deal with interest and currency management from different perspectives. Companies need to ensure a basic liquidity supply, consider supply costs and take into account possible fluctuations caused by currency exchange factors.

Martin Bellin

Founder & CEO at BELLIN

For what audience is the Treasurer Test developed?

| 06-06-2019 | by treasuryXL |

The Treasurer Test has been developed with three different audiences in mind:

  1. Actual Treasurers; those who are already active treasurers
  2. Pre Treasurers; those who have the ambition to become one and
  3. Non Treasurers; those who will not but deal with the function.

Their goals might overlap but there are differences. In this blog we will elaborate.

Actual Treasurer
Taking the test, already being a treasurer, can be useful in many situations. First, wanting to show your hiring manager you are fully capable and have the right personality for the position you want to step into. This is an obvious one. Second, planning your career. The result report will show the candidates treasury knowledge gaps and personality, helping in education and coaching plans. Third and last, as a treasury team you want to be ready for the future of your organisation and prepare. In order to achieve this, you want to know your current status in order to build a development plan with a focus both on skills as well as on personalities.

Pre Treasurer
Aspiring treasurers might have the aforementioned goals and some extra. They might not have done the job, but know a lot and want to prove this. Automatically, the Test will show where development might be started best and if the potential is enough to pick up the position. Taking the Test will also lead to insight what the job is about. It is not intended, but might lead to a candidate treasurer steering his career in another direction. Finally, we are talking with educators to deploy the test at the start and at the end of a program in order to objectively measure progress of students.

Non Treasurer
In finding staff or helping them in development, HR, recruiters and educators will play an important role. It is not to be expected that these specialist benefit from taking the Test. They should know about the Big5 typology and understand how the Test measurers skills.
On the other hand, CFOs, CFO team members, auditors, bankers and other financial specialist and their organisations will benefit from them taking the Test. Many of them consider themselves (unjust) knowledgeable in corporate treasury. Insight in their actual knowledge level is a good starting point. If the non-treasurer knows a lot and can prove this with the Test results, treasury specialists will better accept input. If not, the non-treasurer will better appreciate the expertise of the specialist and put treasury higher on the priority list.

Are you interested how the Treasurer Test can help you? Contact Kendra Keydeniers, Community & Partner Manager.

You can find more relevant information here.

Blockchain-as-a-Service: accelerator for adoption

| 04-06-2019 | Carlo de Meijer | treasuryXL

Blockchain technology has attracted growing interest from various businesses from large corporates to SMEs. But a large scale adoption by corporates and others has long time been hindered by the lack of options. But that is changing.

When interacting with the blockchain they have now two options. They can either set up their node directly, thereby removing the “invisibility cloak” of blockchain. Or they can decide to let someone else do that for them. And here comes BaaS or Blockchain-as-a-Service in scope. BaaS or Blockchain-as-a-Service is comparatively a new blockchain technology, that can be easily integrated in existing corporate infrastructures.

The global Blockchain-as-a-Service Market is set for a rapid growth. According to a recent survey, the Blockchain-as-a-Service is expected to register a CAGR (Compound Annual Growth Rate) of over 15%, during the forecast period (2019-2024), reaching around USD 30,6 billion globally by 2024.

We are not surprised by the emergence of Blockchain-as-a-Service. This overall Blockchain-as-a-Service market has seen accelerated growth with the coming up of creative innovations for blockchain and a faster growing customer demand. The growing demand for this new way of delivering blockchain services is attracting a wide field of new providers in the BaaS market, offering gigantic entryways for advancement.

Why BaaS?

Why do businesses need Blockchain-as-a-Service? Blockchain technology is on rise and business are increasingly willing to adapt to this technology. So far, however, the impact of blockchain disruption has been rather limited.

The companies that really want to use it, may encounter a number obstacles. The resources and expertise needed to develop new blockchain technologies has been a major hurdle for businesses that want to adopt the blockchain.

Blockchain technology is rather knew and relatively unknown. The technical complexities and operational overhead involved in creating, configuring, and operating the blockchain, and maintaining its infrastructure, often act as deterrents to its mass adoption.

Corporates are still far away from understanding the future of blockchain technology and the complexity of setting up of blockchain networks. Its implementation in terms of any technological change entails organizational risks.

Blockchain requires huge investment when it comes to setting up infrastructure and maintaining it. It is much more resource intensive, as compared to traditional databases.

 What is BaaS?

A Blockchain-as-a-Service platform is based on, and works similar to, the concept of Software as a Service (SaaS) model. It is a full-service cloud-based offering that enables customers including corporates to leverage cloud-based solutions to build and use their own blockchain applications and smart contracts and functions that will be hosted on the BaaS platform.

The BaaS platform would deal with the always confusing and labour-intensive back end activities for corporates and/or their business. They will provide all the necessary infrastructure and operational support to ensure that the blockchain applications run smoothly.

The platform will manage all the necessary tasks and activities to keep the infrastructure agile and operational. In other words, it allows the blockchain part of the technology to be relatively invisible for corporates.

Blockchain-as-a-Service providers are, therefore, key for large-scale blockchain adoption across businesses as they enable companies to adopt the blockchain without having to spend as much money as they would have to if they were to develop blockchain solutions on their own.

How does BaaS work?

BaaS would work similar to that of a web hosting provider. BaaS is like a blockchain module toolkit and utility system under the Blockchain Engine for which their users pay a fee.

In BaaS, an external service provider sets up all the necessary blockchain technology and infrastructure for a customer. By paying for a fixed BaaS subscription or consumption, a client pays the BaaS provider to set up and maintain blockchain connected nodes on their behalf. A BaaS provider thereby handles the complex back-end for the client and their business.

The BaaS operator also takes care of support activities like bandwidth management, suitable allocation of resources, hosting requirements, and provides security features like the prevention of hacking attempts.

Leveraging BaaS model, the client can now focus on their core job – the functionality of their blockchain – instead of worrying about infrastructure and performance related issues.

BaaS for who?

Blockchain-as-a-Service is ideal for organizations that wanted to outsource their technological aspects, and are not involved in understanding the working mechanism of the blockchain.

According to the earlier mentioned survey, the financial services industry is expected to occupy the largest market share. Blockchain-as-a-Service offerings are already revolutionizing this industry, as banks and financial service companies are among the most heavily invested enterprises exploring blockchain technology.

This is due to the many, highly valuable decentralized applications of blockchain technology, thereby giving rise to new business models in various areas, such as cross-border payments, remittance, exchanges, internet banking, trade finance, Know Your Customers (KYC), and risk and compliance.

The market is also gaining traction with SMEs that have not the sources to do that on their own. As these are increasingly working online, efficient blockchain services are increasingly required to secure the identity of digital entities and online authentication of personal identities, which drives the demand for Blockchain-as-a-Service offerings.

What may BaaS bring?

Allowing someone else to take care of the complex backend of blockchain ecosystem for corporates, allows corporates or their business to benefit from blockchain technology without really having to deal with blockchain technology.

Instead of creating and running their own blockchains, a business, large or small, can now simply “outsource” the technical complex work and focus on its core activities.

The BaaS format allows companies to familiarize themselves with blockchain technology before making conclusive business decisions about its use.

With BaaS as a cloud-based service, users will be able to develop their own blockchain based products like smart contracts, various applications and services without any setup requirement of the complete blockchain based infrastructure.

If BaaS speeds up, it can lead to real savings for companies. A study by Accenture found that blockchain technology could help banks reach cost savings to reach as high as 38 per cent, or around $12 billion.

 Top BaaS providers

The potential of Blockchain-as-a-Service has been recognized by some of the world’s largest software and technology companies. The interest of many businesses in implementing blockchain and the real difficulties of doing so have triggered several tech companies and cloud providers to now offer Blockchain-as-a-Service (Baas) to businesses that prefer to outsource the development of blockchain solutions.

The list of leading Blockchain-as-a-Service providers is growing, illustrating the growth in the dynamic on-demand tech sector. End 2015, Microsoft became one of the first companies to develop this service. The company has been adding BaaS modules to their cloud-computing platform, Azure, that is  focused on the Ethereum blockchain.

The Linux Foundation last year released Hyperledger Fabric 1.0, a collaboration tool for building blockchain distributed ledgers, such as smart contracts, for vertical industries. IBM has also built their own BaaS service, a Hyperledger Fabric BaaS system based on the Bluemix Cloud Platform. They are focused more on private consortium blockchains.

There are other big names as well that are betting on Blockchain-as-a-Service. Like Oracle Autonomous Blockchain Cloud Service, Amazon Web Services (AWS), HPE Mission Critical DLT and SAP Cloud Platform Blockchain. Of special note in this field is the work being done by R3. R3 has created Corda, a Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) designed specifically to respond to the needs of financial institutions that use this technology.

Most recent BaaS platforms

Microsoft Azure Blockchain Service (ABS)
Microsoft this month announced the launch of Azure Blockchain Service, which is aimed to simplify the formation, management and governance of consortium blockchain networks. Azure, basically, offers Blockchain-as-a-Service (BaaS) by providing several easy-to-deploy, enterprise-ready templates for the most popular ledgers, including Ethereum, Quorum, Hyperledger Fabric, Corda and more.

Azure BaaS, in a nutshell, represents not just a public cloud hosting provider for distributed ledgers, but an organic and integrated low-cost, low-risk platform for building, delivering and deploying decentralized blockchain applications technology.

“Azure Blockchain Service deploys a fully-managed consortium network and offers built-in governance for common management tasks such as adding new members, setting permissions and authenticating user applications.” Microsoft

J.P. Morgan’s Ethereum platform, Quorum, will be the first ledger available in Azure Blockchain Service, giving both companies’ customers the ability to deploy and manage scalable blockchain networks in the cloud.

“Because it’s built on the popular Ethereum protocol, which has the world’s largest blockchain developer community, Quorum is a natural choice. It integrates with a rich set of open-source tools while also supporting confidential transactions, something our enterprise customers require.” J.P. Morgan

“Quorum customers like Starbucks, Louis Vuitton, and their own Xbox Finance team can now use Azure Blockchain Service to quickly expand their networks with lower costs, shifting their focus from infrastructure management to application development and business logic.” Mark Russinovich, chief technology officer at Microsoft Azure

Amazon Web Services (AWS)
Launching a managed blockchain service late last year, Amazon is now opening Amazon Web Services (AWS) for general availability. This new service is developed on top of open-source frameworks like Hyperledger Fabric and Ethereum.

Customers simply choose their preferred framework, add network members, and configure the member nodes that process transaction requests. Its Amazon Managed Blockchain takes care of the rest.

“Amazon Managed Blockchain takes care of provisioning nodes, setting up the network, managing certificates and security, and scaling the network. Customers can now get a functioning blockchain network set up quickly and easily, so they can focus on application development instead of keeping a blockchain network up and running.” Amazon

It is a fully managed service designed to help companies quickly set up blockchain networks of their own that can span multiple AWS accounts that are scalable and easy to create and manage and configure the software, security and network settings.

“This can be done with a few clicks in the AWS Management Console, doing away with the typical cost and difficulty of creating a company network”. Amazon

Already companies like AT&T Business, Nestlé and the Singaporean investment market the Singapore Exchange have signed on to use the company’s services.

Ardor (ARDR)
Ardor is one of the latest in the growing field of contenders for Blockchain-as-a-Service (BaaS) providers. It provides the blockchain infrastructure for businesses and institutions to leverage the strengths of blockchain technology without having to invest in developing custom blockchain solutions.

Ardor is a BaaS platform that will allow corporates and others to use the Nxt blockchain, an advanced blockchain platform. It separates security from functionality by creating multiple chains. Ardor offers a main chain that handles blockchain security and decentralization. It provides customizable child chains that come ready to use, out of the box, for various business applications.

When customers want to implement a new project on Ardor, they can create a child chain. The child chain holds all the functionality and customizability supported on the Nxt blockchain. However, it is still linked to the main chain and derives its security and decentralization from using the main chain for verification.

The developers of Ardor are the same company behind the open source Nxt project. Ardor however goes beyond Nxt to solve critical issues of blockchain growth, scalability, and customization. Ardor includes every feature supported by the Nxt blockchain, but it changes the architecture of how new blockchains get implemented.  

Towards decentralised BAAS solutions

BaaS however has some limitations though. An inherent tension seems to exist between the decentralized promise of blockchain and the more centralized nature of Amazon’s and other providers fully managed BaaS services.

BaaS should be seen as a means to an end, and necessarily involves adding some centralization to blockchain, which is never ideal. The purpose of blockchain is however to have decentralized solutions to centralized problems. This could be the banks as much as it could be any trusted middleman.

What does the ideal version of BaaS look like? BaaS is an essential step to be able to bring blockchain mainstream. But in a perfect blockchain world, we would not have centralized BaaS.

It could possibly look like Ardor and Nxt, where BaaS is front-loaded into the fundamentals of the blockchain. Alternatively, MIMIR Blockchain Solutions are creating the world’s first Decentralized Ethereum Service Provider (DESP). They are using Proof of Stake mechanics to allow for decentralized BaaS. Instead of having one entity set up all the blockchain infrastructure for a corporate, MIMIR creates a system where the multitude of nodes can work together to share blockchain access to the growing number of corporates and others  who want access to blockchain. Instead of relying on a centralized party to share blockchain access, MIMIR relies on a distributed model where all connected nodes can get paid to do the heavy lifting for people.     

Forward thinking

The arrival of Blockchain-as-a-Service or BaaS is an interesting development in the blockchain ecosystem that is indirectly aiding the blockchain adoption across businesses. Definitely, creating, maintaining and managing a new blockchain solution will be easier with BaaS.

Though BaaS does still require one to rely on a centralized third party, it is a strong step towards bringing blockchain technology to the world. BaaS may be the necessary catalyst that can lead to a much wider and deeper penetration of blockchain technology across various industry sectors and businesses.

BaaS will set the blockchain future trends by making it more feasible and solving the existing problems of the industry. As more businesses look for convenient and cost-effective ways to leverage blockchain technology, it is likely that BaaS offerings will continue to proliferate.

“Taking the burden of difficulty out of the equation” will allow a wide range of businesses and industries to adopt blockchain into their existing platforms.

Though there is still a long way to go, for many companies, BaaS is – at this moment – the best way to begin the blockchain journey. Keeping an eye on the space can help corporates to  choose the right BaaS provider for their business needs.

 

 

Carlo de Meijer

Economist and researcher

 

Training: Ontdek de kracht van BI voor Financials

| 3-6-2019 | Alex van Groningen |

Wilt u een actievere rol gaan spelen in Business Intelligence (BI) en Analytics-projecten? Wordt u betrokken bij informatievoorziening ter ondersteuning van strategische en tactische besluitvormingsprocessen? Wilt u beter voorbereid in gesprek gaan met BI-specialisten? Dan is de introductietraining BI voor Financials voor u onmisbaar.

Ontdek de kracht van BI

BI staat al jaren bovenaan in top 10 lijstjes van zowel management als IT. Vooral door de recente mogelijkheden die big data analyse biedt om meer waarde te creëren. Ook in de financiële wereld is BI hot en wordt er, naast klassieke reporting lines, nadrukkelijk gekeken naar wat analyses kunnen brengen. Na deze eendaagse introductietraining weet u het ook.

Meld u nu aan

Volg de training BI voor Financials en ontdek wat BI is en wat het voor uw financiële organisatie kan betekenen. Verkrijg een 360° inzicht en ga direct aan de slag.

Periode: 1 dag
Investering: 995,-
Certificaat: 7 PE uren klassikaal
Datum: 6 juni 2019
Locatie: Hotel Fletcher Utrecht/Nieuwegein

Aanmelden

Uw voordelen

  • Begrijp de power van BI; haal alles uit de informatie die u in huis heeft
  • Word een volwaardige gesprekspartner voor BI- en IT-specialisten
  • Implementeer BI effectief, efficiënt en overtuigend in uw planning-en-controlcycli
  • Overtuig uw directie op basis van feiten en een onderbouwde BI businesscase
  • Lever financiële rapportages en analyses die zichtbaar toegevoegde waarde hebben

Onderwerpen

  • Wat is Business Intelligence?
  • Toepassingen voor BI binnen finance
  • Inrichting van en technieken voor BI
  • Gastspreker Jeroen Frenken; Manager BI Competency Center Schiphol Group
  • Organiseren van BI
  • Een businesscase voor BI

Boeken en materialen

Alle deelnemers ontvangen een map met alle presentaties die uitstekend als naslagwerk kan worden gebruikt.

Voor wie?

Bent u ook een financieel manager aan wie steeds hogere eisen worden gesteld? Wordt van u verwacht dat u mee kunt denken over IT vraagstukken? Wordt u ook geconfronteerd met complexe IT beslissingen en een steeds grotere aansprakelijkheid? Dan is deze BI introductie training voor u onmisbaar.

Incompany

We kunnen dit programma ook voor u op maat organiseren. Dat is al een goede optie bij vijf of meer medewerkers. Een financieel voordeel oplopend tot 50% van open deelname, een programma op maat en uitvoering waar en wanneer het u en uw organisatie uitkomt.

Vragen? Neem contact op!

Kan ik u van dienst zijn met een toelichting of advies?
Bel of mail gerust. Ik help u graag verder.

Ivo ten Hoorn, Product Manager Opleidingen
020 578 8911 / 06 2471 9757
[email protected]

 

Executive Treasury Management & Corporate Finance session

| 31-5-2019 | Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam |

An information session has been scheduled for June 26, 2019 at 19.00-19.45. For more information or registration for this session, please contact [email protected].

KEY FACTS ON THE PRO­GRAM

The post-graduate Executive Treasury Management & Corporate Finance programme combines two finance disciplines: Treasury Management and Corporate Finance. These disciplines largely overlap and are inextricably connected.

This post-graduate executive programme has now been running for more than 20 years at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. It is a unique programme both in the Netherlands and abroad.

As from September 2018 the programme will be delivered entirely in English to appeal to the increasingly large community of non-Dutch-speaking finance professionals in the Netherlands.

Participants successfully completing this post-graduate executive programme will be awarded with the title of Registered Treasurer. This title is well-known and widely recognized within the treasury professionals’ community.

The curriculum consists of 6 modules, each of which covers a clear sub-discipline in Treasury Management and Corporate Finance. Each module comprises approx 8 lecture days on Thursdays (from 15:30 until 20:00). It is an intensive and efficient 18-month programme.

The post-graduate Executive Treasury Management & Corporate Finance programme is a strategic partner of the Dutch Association of Corporate Treasurers (DACT). Partners in the programme are KPMG, Orchard Finance, PwC, and Zanders Treasury & Finance Solutions. Senior affiliates are programme lecturers.

Exemptions apply to alumni of Dutch RC and RA programmes.

LOCATION

Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam
Agora complex
De Boelelaan 1105
Amsterdam

CONTACT

Investment Management (IM) & Chartered Financial Management (CFA)
Emiel Erbé
[email protected]
020-5986118

Risk Management for Financial Institutions (RFMI)
Michelle Habets
[email protected]
020-5986159

Treasury Management & Corporate Finance (TM&CF)
Myrthe Scholze
[email protected]
020-5987231