Does your payment land in the correct currency account?

| 16-07-2019 | by Pieter de Kiewit |

Recently I received signals from a treasurer working in a mid-sized company about payments in various currencies landing on the wrong account. In a payment of USD 1 million, this could lead to extra cost of about USD 9,000! This results in extra cost and should be avoided…

In most SMEs in Europe a payment from US clients will be transferred in US dollars and lands in EURO’s. Banks facilitate this process and their fees consist of two parts:

  1. a transaction fee that is often a fixed fee or maximized percentage of the amount transferred
  2. a price to make Euro’s out of US dollars, following a conversion rate (the price you pay for buying dollars is different from the sell price, the difference is called “the spread”).

If you receive payments in US dollars regularly, you can consider opening a US dollar bank account. Therefore, you will avoid constant payment of the conversion rate. This is most relevant when you also make payments from this account. All big banks offer bank accounts in various currencies as a paid service.

Let’s take a deeper dive into the signals that I received: A foreign client made a payment in dollars with his dollar account. He transferred the dollars to the Euro account of my contact. This was all documented. Nevertheless, the bank charged transaction and conversion fees. Luckily this was discovered by my contact. After informing the bank about this issue, the bank repaired it all.

There could be various reasons why this happened. We all know that the global IT landscape in traditional banks consists of many different systems of a different age. A network problem could be a possible issue. The likelihood of this happening again is high, so be aware! Also, although we do not like this, it could be that this payment was handled manually. A mistake is easily made, hopefully not too frequent. It would be the worst case scenario when banks manipulate payments in order to claim fees. Let’s assume this is not the case.

The point I want to make: check if payments land on the proper currency account or it will cost you!

Any of you encountered misrouted payments?

PS From my own experience: in your ebanking environment, the default currency is not necessarily the currency the account is in. My GBP account had EURO as default currency…

 

 

Pieter de Kiewit
Owner Treasurer Search

 

Be careful what you wish for in crowdfunding

| 02-07-2019 | by Pieter de Kiewit |

Over the last decade bankers have taken over from civil servants and public transport employees as the ones to complain about. Yours truly is also guilty and I still meet bankers who do not like to talk about their profession because they are annoyed about the bashing. Nobody is perfect but haven’t we all been too harsh on bankers?

This question popped up last week when I read about crowdfunding developments. This relatively new form of funding is growing quickly. I see at least three obvious reasons for this. First, regular banks are reluctant to fund SMEs. Regulatory requirements, ROI and risk profiles of their potential clients are some reasons for that. Second, there is a lot of liquidity in the market and it is hard to make proper investments. Third and last, various platforms, with easy accessible IT solutions, facilitate investors finding those who need funds. Why my plea to go easier on the bankers?

With crowdfunding platforms building a track record, issues are becoming very visible. There are two very prominent problems. Many SMEs using crowdfunding facilitate the payment of extremely high interests, the term loan sharks already came up. The other prominent problem is that the credit risk process in crowdfunding is often very weak. This results in the funding of unstable businesses and weak plans, ending up with funders empty-handed.

I am a small business owner, the chamber of commerce sells my address to whoever pays. On a very regular basis I receive mail informing me how much I can borrow. Crowdfunding is not regulated like banks are. Process and expectation management is being done quite aggressively by platforms and I understand problems are becoming obvious as the market matures. I invite you to read input from Lex van Teeffelen and others:

RTL Z/ANP: Failliet door crowdfunding: ‘Hoge rentes nekken ondernemers’
Lex van Teefelen: Dalend rendement crowdfunding 2019 / Flitskrediet: meer vloek dan zegen! 

This brings me back to where I started with: were we right in bashing bankers? Their processes are more sound, their communication is done with more restraint. There were extremes, mistakes were made and greed was obvious. I think most bankers tried and try to do an honest and professional job. Let’s keep each other informed, educated and ask before we judge. Hopefully we will get better in doing a proper funding job.

 

 

 

Pieter de Kiewit
Owner Treasurer Search

 

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

 

What does the hiring manager know about treasury?

| 23-05-2019 | by Pieter de Kiewit |

Among corporate treasurers IPOs are always the icing on the cake and I have followed Adyen going public. Very interesting is that besides the obvious reasons like increased investments, money for the founders and employees dealing with their stock options, the strategic partners and clients play a role. Clients like eBay and Uber apparently work better together with a listed Adyen. Food for thought….

What does the hiring manager know about treasury?

At least half of our recruitment assignments starts with a message from our client like this: “we have this treasurer, I do not understand what he does but he is leaving. Can you help?”. Of course music to our ears, happy to help. In recruitment for permanent positions HR is involved, very often they also contribute in interim assignments. HR not knowing in detail about treasury is understandable. Especially when the candidate we search does not report into a senior treasurer but, for instance, a CFO, we also encounter a lack of knowledge in treasury with the hiring manager. Is this a problem and if so, how can this be solved?

You might have seen we contribute in the build-up of the Treasurer Test. One of the groups of people we asked to do the test are “financials, not being treasurers”. Their measurered lack of knowledge and interest in the field is obvious. This is of course not a surprise. Treasurers are, amongst others, responsible for funding, payments, management of currency and interest risk. Important enough for the continuation of the existence of an organisation. How can we prevent this important job lands with the wrong person? Some ideas:

  • A track record as shown in a cv is of course a first obvious. A candidate might be too positive about accomplishments, this can be screened by checking references. Screening CVs without knowledge about treasury might be daunting. Simply key word comparison will not work;
  • Worldwide there are only a few universities that pay attention to corporate treasury. Measuring knowledge through academic qualifications is smart (Register Treasurer, CTP, ACT are the most obvious). Currently less then 20% of the corporate treasury population holds such a degree;
  • The aforementioned Treasurer Test will be launched shortly presents skill level and personality and compares with peers;
  • Including knowledgeable experts in the recruitment process will help. We of course are available. Alternatively involving a specialized treasury consultant in the screening process might also work.

I hope you will be able to find the right next treasury team member, secure business continuity and feel confident with your recruitment decision with the above list. We are available to brainstorm and support.

Pieter de Kiewit

 

 

Pieter de Kiewit
Owner Treasurer Search

 

Management of Large Treasury Teams

| 11-2-2019 | by  Pieter de Kiewit |

Last month I was contacted by one of our clients -we found many staff members for them- about the organisation of the treasury team. The team has over 10 employees and recently has undergone extensive changes. We both know there is not one way to set up a team and after a short brainstorm, we decided it might be a good idea to gather her peers for a round table meeting. What can we learn from each other?

Last Friday a small group of treasury people managers, each of their teams has 10 members or more, gathered for a two hour meeting. The expected topics were team structure, hierarchy, job titles and the profile of the ideal treasury team member. Our hypothesis was that there are certain standards most of us can apply to optimize our treasury teams.
After a brief introduction it became quickly clear there were more than enough topics, two hours was not enough. And the aforementioned standards might exist but this meeting did not result in making them very clear. This in line with a previous blog I wrote about the shape and size of treasury teams. The following observations dominated the meeting:

  • The size and structure of a treasury team depends on questions about the company like: is it a HQ treasury or treasury hub?, what is the geographical footprint of the company?, what is the primary process of the company?, what is the maturity of the company as a whole and the willingness to invest in support functions?
  • Technology has an increasing impact on corporate treasury. Cloud and other solutions enable outsourcing, although the following remarkable statement was made: “if you can outsource it,  you can automate it”. One of the participants told exciting initiatives using robotics;
  • Substantial time was spent on HR aspects like how to deal with Millenials, age versus IT literacy, hiring the ambitious and unstable candidate versus the stable non-ambitious one and how do you screen to hire the proper candidate (see also our blog about the Treasurer Test).

The variety of topics, the different points of view and approaches applied by treasury managers is inspiring. As was the energy and enthusiasm of all participants. Together with them I will decide how we will proceed. Let me know if you want to join this initiative!

Pieter de Kiewit

 

 

Pieter de Kiewit
Owner Treasurer Search

 

 

Wat is corporate treasury?

| 20-12-2018 | by  Pieter de Kiewit |

Uw hypotheek, creditcard, vakantiegeld en lopende rekening hebben equivalenten voor bedrijven, ze worden beheerd door corporate treasurers. De titelvraag, of variaties, is er een die ik nogal vaak moet beantwoorden, vaker nog rond de feestdagen wanneer ik mijn familie ontmoet. Er is nooit één pasklaar antwoord, in mijn huidige strategie verbind ik privé met een zakelijke view. Misschien kunt u (expert in het veld of de leek) me laten weten of deze verklaring voor u werkt.

U hebt op het moment een betaalrekening, spaarrekening en misschien nog een andere rekening. Je betaalt de huur, boodschappen en een biertje. U gebruikt een bankpas of creditcard, contant geld, een cheque, PayPal of betaalt misschien op een andere manier. U zorgt ervoor dat alleen u en de mensen die u vertrouwt toegang hebben tot uw geld.

Corporate treasurers bouwen en onderhouden een bankinfrastructuur die betalingen mogelijk maakt. Ze denken na over wie betalingen mag doen (vaak zijn zij dat), wie kan autoriseren (geen persoon die de betalingen uitvoert zijnde niet de cash manager), welke bank te gebruiken en potentiële andere betaalkanalen.

Je hebt een hypotheek of een persoonlijke lening zodat je een huis kunt kopen of kunt betalen voor boodschappen, terwijl aan het einde van je looncheque de maand nog niet ten einde is. Corporate treasurers vinden fundingsoplossingen/financieringsoplossingen voor hun bedrijf, zij hebben een breder pakket producten beschikbaar zoals kredietfaciliteiten, obligaties of nieuwe aandelen.

Je voelt fluctuaties in rente en valuta wanneer je de grens overgaat naar een ander valutaland, Uw hypotheek komt met rente, op uw betaalrekening en creditcard wordt met valuta marges gewerkt. Zowel valuta’s als rente zijn variabel, financiële markten zijn niet stabiel. Velen van ons accepteren deze veranderingen gewoon. Corporate treasurers denken na over deze risico’s en beheren ze: ze denken na over de valuta’s in commerciële contracten, over de duur en prijs van verschillende financieringsproducten en over het beheersen/beheren van de risico’s, bijvoorbeeld met behulp van derivaten.

Natuurlijk is de bovenstaande beschrijving een te eenvoudige beschrijving van de situatie. Treasurers hebben veel andere taken en de complexiteit is veel groter dan een standaard huishoudelijke situatie. Verder wil ik benadrukken dat treasurers geen boekhouders of controllers zijn: ze verzenden of ontvangen geen facturen en schrijven het jaarverslag niet. Ze beheren de feitelijke risico’s en geldstromen.

Ik hoop dat je dit jaar je familie beter kunt informeren over de baan. Geniet van de vakantie!

Pieter de Kiewit

 

 

Pieter de Kiewit

Owner of Treasurer Search

 

YOU CAN BE ONE OF THE LAST PEER GROUP MEMBERS!

| 13-12-2018 | by  Pieter de Kiewit |

“Under 20% of the treasury population completed a formal treasury education. And over 50% of decision makers in the recruitment of treasurers does not know about the discipline.” We are one of the launching partners of the Treasurer Test that can bring an objective measurement that can tackle problems resulting from the described issue. Others are the Vrije Universiteit (Amsterdam), the University of Applied Sciences of Utrecht, software & assessment developers and law experts.

Key element of the test is the comparison with peer groups. These groups are defined by number of years of experience in treasury of its’ members. Our role as launching partner is asking 100 relevant peer group members that will create the benchmark that future testees will be compared with. Peer group members do not pay the €595 the test will cost when ready, but only €1,21. We carefully invited most, but there are still a few places left, especially in the group with under 9 years’ experience. If you are interested, please contact Roy Baaten, the community manager of treasuryXL at [email protected]

When the number of 100 is reached, reports will be sent out and the Treasurer Test is ready for use. We expect a lot. At Treasurer Search we will use the test in our committed searches and many other situations, when relevant. First expectation is to further improve the match making process. Also in choosing education, coaching, outplacement, team formation and salary benchmarking the test can come in handy. Perhaps even showing a CFO about the complexity of the discipline can be done. There is a peer group “no treasury experience”.

We look forward to the analysis that can be made after a bigger group of people completed the test What will we see in the correlation between age, education level, nationality on one hand and treasury skills level on the other? We expect to further contribute in raising the level of corporate treasury and hope you will join us.

For more information about the Treasurer Test please visit the Treasurer Test Blog page.

Pieter de Kiewit

 

 

Pieter de Kiewit
Owner Treasurer Search

 

 

Treasurer Test, you can be one of the last peer group members!

| 22-11-2018 | by  Pieter de Kiewit |

“Under 20% of the treasury population completed a formal treasury education. And over 50% of decision makers in the recruitment of treasurers does not know about the discipline.” We are one of the launching partners of the Treasurer Test that can bring an objective measurement that can tackle problems resulting from the described issue. Others are the Vrije Universiteit (Amsterdam), the University of Applied Sciences of Utrecht, software & assessment developers and law experts.

Key element of the test is the comparison with peer groups. These groups are defined by number of years of experience in treasury of its’ members. Our role as launching partner is asking 100 relevant peer group members that will create the benchmark that future testees will be compared with. Peer group members do not pay the €595 the test will cost when ready, but only €1. We carefully invited most, but there are still a few places left, especially in the group with under 9 years’ experience. If you are interested, please contact Roy Baaten, the community manager of treasuryXL at [email protected]

When the number of 100 is reached, reports will be sent out and the Treasurer Test is ready for use. We expect a lot. At Treasurer Search we will use the test in our committed searches and many other situations, when relevant. First expectation is to further improve the match making process. Also in choosing education, coaching, outplacement, team formation and salary benchmarking the test can come in handy. Perhaps even showing a CFO about the complexity of the discipline can be done. There is a peer group “no treasury experience”.

We look forward to the analysis that can be made after a bigger group of people completed the test What will we see in the correlation between age, education level, nationality on one hand and treasury skills level on the other? We expect to further contribute in raising the level of corporate treasury and hope you will join us.

 

Pieter de Kiewit

 

 

Pieter de Kiewit
Owner Treasurer Search

 

 

Real and fake risk control – Treasurers and recruiters benefit and suffer

| 25-09-2018 | by  Pieter de Kiewit |

As owner of a small company I have been listening to people complaining about regulatory and compliance affairs for a long time. 2018 will be the year these affairs have a substantial impact on my business and now I can understand the complaints. Both treasurers, recruiters and, I expect, many others in our society, struggle finding the balance in correcting what goes wrong and the hassle of too many rules. Some simple examples: 

  • ING is punished hard for money laundering and I suspect just so. The rules are in place but not applied. My assumption is that target setting beats following the rules;
  • Some large corporates nowadays hire recruitment outsourcing parties that do the procurement of my services. One of them required me to inform them about the payrolling of my staff because: “in Bangladesh there is child labour and we want to prevent you make the same mistake”;
  • One of my clients is a subsidiary of an international conglomerate and decided to implement the services of a new cash management bank. The project has been on hold because the HQ of the conglomerate and the bank cannot agree upon the know your customer (KYC) regulations, much to frustration of all involved;
  • GDPR is implemented, also to control the power of large internet firms. Of course these regulations also apply to my business but did any of you read my new privacy statement or actually read cookie statements? Bureaucracy rules!

I think 99% of us know what is the right thing in 99% of the cases. This is what our parents taught us. That does not mean we will do the right thing. In the current situation, regulators want to solve issues by creating new rules. I am happy that applying the rules with consequences, as with ING, is being done increasingly. I think the structural solution does not lie in more rules.

Hopefully we can all start a dialogue about what is right and act upon it. Customers and clients, family members, colleagues, countries, teachers and students. Not blindly following the rules, but following them because we understand and agree. I am aware that this sounds might sound soft and is not possible in all situations. With many of our clients we cooperate successfully based upon a few bullet points in an email. That’s the way I like it.

Will you share your thoughts?

Pieter de Kiewit

 

 

Pieter de Kiewit
Owner Treasurer Search

 

 

 

Testing Treasurers for Integrity

| 06-09-2018 | by  Pieter de Kiewit |

Last month Dutch newspapers published about two convictions that made me further think about the combination of treasurers and integrity. In the Vestia case, derivatives fraud within the largest social housing corporation of The Netherlands, the treasurer and broker were sentenced to time in jail. With ABN Amro, staff was being let go for falsifying signatures in mortgage documentation. The severity of the two cases is very different, but integrity of staff was relevant. Could these cases have been prevented? 

In the development of the Treasuer Test (https://www.treasurersearch.com/blogs/3/s66ebd-getting-ready-to-launch-the-treasurer-test!), one of the most asked features is an integrity test of the testee. The development partners have scanned the market for the availability of such a test and received very mixed messages. Some parties offer questionnaires that pretend to measure this personality trait, others say it cannot be measured at all. Between these two there are service provider that do full day assessments, not just questionnaires, and claim good results. We have pondered on the subject and decided not to include this element in the test.

In recruitment we rely on past behaviour when wanting to make a statement on integrity. Reference checks and screening of documents by companies that offer private-investor-like services will bring the most solid results in my opinion. In The Netherlands one can ask for a “verklaring omtrent gedrag (VOG)” at the municipality that report about criminal behaviour. That would be proof something is not good, not proof things are good.

All in all it is a tricky subject. One thing one can be sure of: the candidate that lacks integrity will not inform you about this. Furthermore one can ask if integrity is solely in the person or that an environment can create non-integrity. Perhaps pushing for results and at the same time doing the right thing is a hard task. I would like to read about your thoughts about the subject.

 

Pieter de Kiewit

 

 

Pieter de Kiewit
Owner Treasurer Search