How does the FATF help fight financial crime?

01-12-2020 | treasuryXL | Refinitiv |

The Financial Action Task Force (FATF) plays a crucial role in the global fight against crime, corruption and terrorism through its Mutual Evaluation assessment. How has the FATF evolved since its birth 31 years ago, and what role does it play in anti-money laundering (AML) and countering the financing of terrorism (CFT)?

  1. The FATF is an intergovernmental body that oversees global efforts to combat money laundering and the financing of terrorism.
  2. To become part of the FATF group, a country must undergo a ‘Mutual Peer Review’ to determine its levels of compliance with FATF’s Recommendations.
  3. The FATF’s methodology change, introducing the Effectiveness Assessment, is yielding more accurate results of a jurisdiction’s levels of compliance with its AML/CFT global standard.

The FATF is an inter-governmental body that was established in 1989 by the G7 nations to combat money laundering. For the first 12 years, of its existence it was a little-known organization. However, it came to prominence after 9/11 when its mandate was expanded to include additional Recommendations to combat the financing of terrorism and the financing of the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. Since then, the FATF mandate and Recommendations have been endorsed by different UN resolutions, and it has been transformed to adapt to different emerging threats. In 2008, after the global financial crisis, FATF’s role as an international standard policy-making body in AML and CFT was expanded by the G20. It was given the ‘soft power’ to generate the necessary political will to bring about legislative and regulatory reforms in countries.

The FATF Mutual Peer Review

Countries wishing to become members of the FATF group must commit to a ‘Mutual Peer Review’ system. This will determine the country’s levels of deployment and compliance with the FATF Recommendations, which have been set as the international AML/CFT standard. The FATF oversees these reviews in conjunction with different international members and observers such as the IMF, the World Bank, the OECD, and the European Commission.                                                                                       
In addition to the information received from the assessment team performing the review, the FATF Mutual Evaluation’s Effectiveness Assessment also considers information from the FATF team that visits the country being evaluated. The Mutual Evaluation team comprises highly trained experts drawn from FATF member countries and international bodies.

 

Recommendations focus on effectiveness

Until 2013, the results of the FATF review were largely focused on the technical implementation of the Recommendations into the local legislations. However, because of the high levels of money laundering (ML) and financing of terrorism (FT) globally, the FATF decided to enhance its methodology to focus more on effectiveness rather than just technical compliance. This revised methodology helped to produce the expected tangible results in the fight against AML/CFT. It shed light on many countries that had previously been evaluated, but who under the new methodology began to show serious weaknesses in the fight against ML and FT. This resulted in the number of countries and jurisdictions on the FATF Grey List — those who were placed under increased monitoring — to start growing.

The FATF Mutual Evaluation employs peer pressure from other countries, as well as bodies such as the IMF and the World Bank, which impels the assessed countries to act. Negative mutual evaluation outcomes not only seriously damage the reputation of the assessed countries and embarrass its governments, but might also generate replicated systemic risks of coercion by other international institutions such as the European Commission. And the new methodology is working. In recent years, the Effectiveness Assessment is yielding more accurate results of a jurisdiction’s levels of compliance with FATF’s AML/CFT global standard. Many jurisdictions are now finally realizing the coercive power of the Mutual Assessment.

New evaluation methodology

The fourth round of Mutual Evaluations from FATF continued the shift towards concentrating on how effectively regulations are deployed rather than mainly focusing on technical compliance and whether country laws and regulations are in place in accordance with the FATF Recommendations.

This can be very challenging for a number of countries in many sectors, including some that have previously been assessed to be complying with the standards before the introduction of this new evaluation methodology.

The pressure to ensure that legislation was changed and that industry sectors complied with the Recommendations was achieved by targeting the industry sectors that posed the highest AML/CFT risk. At least this was the case in the Middle East and Africa. The early years concentrated on the banking and financial sectors, including the capital markets. This focus was later broadened to non-banking remittances and payments organizations and money exchanges. This was followed by the insurance sector and so on.

Non-financial sectors under the spotlight

The last few years has seen Mutual Evaluation reports focus on the designated non-financial business and professions (DNFBPs) sectors — real estate, lawyers, accountants, gold and precious stone dealers, for example — that had been previously overlooked area by past evaluations. For example, the EU Fifth Anti-Money Laundering Directive, which came into effect in January 2020, further strengthened its AML/CFT legislation to fall in line with the FATF, when it included a number of new sectors.

The non-financial sector often has the misconception that AML/CFT regulations are solely for the banking and financial sectors. A key shortcoming identified by FATF across many jurisdictions in emerging markets is that DNFBPs are falling short of FATF expectations. Recent evaluation reports from several countries show that DNFBPs have less comprehensive, and sometimes limited or no understanding, of AML/CFT regulations and the risks that they are facing.

However, the new approach of measuring effectiveness rather than technical compliance might keep many countries’ institutions and companies to consider: “Are our sanctions and transactions screening just a checklist process, or do they show the real effectiveness of our AML/CFT risk process as defined by FATF?”

Nomentia Webinar: Building the Bridge Between Treasury & Finance: Communication, Collaboration, Technology

| 18-11-2020 | treasuryXL | OpusCapita |

Finance & Treasury leaders are being challenged to become more engaged in driving results across the enterprise. This requires alignment across the Office of the CFO before these leaders can have success in impacting performance in HR, Operations, Marketing and Sales. How can treasury & finance leaders identify and mitigate barriers to effective communication and collaboration to maximize the value delivered by the Office of the CFO?

Join us to discover how to earn trust within and across departmental lines, and up and down the org chart at your company.

We will empower you to:

? Identify the skills you possess and/or need to develop to build deeper mutually beneficial relationships within and across departmental lines.

?Leverage technology to communicate with impact in any business environment.

?Raise your IQ relative to how and why treasury & finance work at your company.

?Define opportunities to impact the performance of your colleagues in treasury & finance at your company.

REGISTER NOW

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!

Treasury Delta’s corporate treasury RFP platform: How does it work and why collaborate?

| 18-11-2020 | treasuryXL | Treasury Delta | Having a hard time dealing with complex and time-consuming RFP processes?

Read more

Partner Interview SpendLab | Leaders in Spend Justification

17-11-2020 | treasuryXL | SpendLab |

SpendLab Recovery generates liquidity for clients by using their Accounts Payable Recovery Analyzer (APRA). APRA is a technology platform that combines over 400 algorithms, Big Data, AI, and machine learning, and audits all the raw Accounts Payable data in any ERP system to identify anomalies. Several examples of anomalies include but are not limited to: undue payments, double invoices, overpayments, and overpaid VAT. Over the past years, SpendLab has analysed over 321 million invoices and has recovered more than €200 million EUR for its clients.

We asked the company 10 questions, let’s go!

INTERVIEW

1. Can you tell something about SpendLab Recovery?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

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

Contact us!

 

Identity fraud, COVID-19 and the Pivotal role of Digital Identity

16-11-2020 | treasuryXL | Refinitiv |

Financial crime, including identity fraud, is growing as sophisticated criminals exploit the ever-expanding capabilities of emerging technology. The COVID-19 crisis has only served to increase opportunities for criminals to benefit from fear, uncertainty and desperation, but digital identity solutions offer banks and financial institutions (FIs) a chance to fight back.


Financial crime and identity fraud: fueled by the digital revolution

As digital connectivity continues to redefine every aspect of our lives, quick, seamless digital experiences have come to embody our new normal. This digital revolution is being driven by a host of interconnected factors, including a changing regulatory landscape and emerging technology that creates an environment with low barriers to entry. Other factors are also at play, including ever-increasing connectivity between entities, increased cross-border activity, and tech-savvy consumers who demand choice, fairness, flexibility, and an omnichannel experience across all areas of their lives. Consumers accustomed to digital retail experiences expect the same 24/7/365 digital experience in other areas of their lives, such as banking and wealth management. Moreover, they increasingly expect tailored, highly personalized experiences.

The result of enhanced connectivity, convenience and increased consumer engagement is a real need to protect against highly sophisticated financial criminals who are harnessing the same digital capabilities to defraud both organizations and individuals. Put simply, the technological advancements that make our lives easier can also benefit criminals, making it easier for them to commit financial crime. According to the World Economic Forum, fraud and financial crime constitute a trillion-dollar industry, and private companies spent approximately US$8.2 billion on anti-money laundering (AML) controls alone in 2017.

Refinitiv’s own research, presented in our 2019 report, Innovation and the fight against financial crime, confirms that financial crime is indeed pervasive and costly. Our findings were collated from a survey of more than 3000 managers with compliance-related responsibilities at large global organizations. We found that nearly three-quarters (72%) of respondents were aware of financial crime taking place in their global operations during the 12 months preceding the survey, even though the same companies spent an average of 4% of turnover on customer and third-party due diligence checks. Looking specifically at identity fraud, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has revealed that synthetic identity fraud – where criminals manufacture a new identity using both legitimate and false information – is the fastest growing crime in the U.S.2

COVID-19 has upped the ant

Following the rapid spread of the epidemic , financial crime has accelerated as criminals have found new opportunities to exploit fear, uncertainty and desperation. The FBI provides various innovative examples relating to how criminals are using COVID-19 to defraud individuals, including government impersonators who aim to extract personal information for illegal purposes. And work-from-home fraud, in which victims are asked to send or move money, effectively becoming money mules and enabling criminals.

Forward-thinking banks and FIs are already beginning to accelerate their existing digital transformation programs to mitigate the higher levels of risk anticipated during and after the pandemic. In particular, we expect a significant uptick in the use of digital onboarding and digital identity solutions as more consumers are forced to transact online as a result of lockdown and social distancing requirements; choose to do so for fear of contracting or spreading the virus; and/or are seeking better security when asked to prove their identity.

Even before the pandemic, many firms were increasingly using digital innovation to fight financial crime, including digital identity solutions in the client identification space. Digital identity solutions offer fast, reliable digital identity verification and screening; transcend geographies; boost operational efficiency; and remove the human error factor. Moreover, digital identity helps financial institutions optimize compliance models, improve risk mitigation and protect customers from identity fraud. As the world grapples with the effects of the pandemic, banks and FIs have a real and immediate opportunity to review their systems and controls, while simultaneously accelerating digital transformation and moving away from old-school manual Know Your Customer (KYC) processes.

The far-reaching effects of identity theft

Organizations across the financial services industry are facing a range of common challenges, including rising competition, tightening margins, strict regulatory expectations, the need for greater operational efficiency, and pressure to reduce costs. There is the added fundamental requirement to ensure that the client experience is positive. Customer abandonment levels remain unacceptably high, with over half (56%) of consumers in the UK abandoning bank applications in 2018. Our research suggests that traditional KYC and due diligence processes – which can be time-consuming, inefficient and costly – have contributed to this.

While firms are increasingly aware of the need to ensure better experiences for clients, they also need to consider the ever-growing security threats such as large-scale data breaches, phishing and social engineering attacks. These crimes have made it easier for fraudsters to assume the identities of legitimate account owners via account takeover fraud. The impact of identity fraud is far-reaching, with victims experiencing both financial and psychological damage that can severely impact their behavior and future brand loyalty.

There is therefore an urgent need for banks and FIs to prioritize customer identity protection alongside the accepted need to ensure a positive experience. Many banks and FIs are not moving fast enough to address this issue – and need to become more aware of the wider social risks of identity fraud.

On a more positive note, a highly encouraging finding from our survey was that technology, including digital identity solutions, is increasingly able to help organizations fight back against financial crime while improving client relationships. A significant 94% of survey respondents agreed that the technology they use to detect financial crime is also enhancing customer engagement.

Digital identity: who can benefit?

Digital identity solutions continue to grow in popularity and offer numerous benefits to different industry participants, including retail banks and wealth managers.

Retail Banking

Retail banks, for example, can benefit from enhanced speed, efficiency and security when using digital onboarding and digital identity solutions during customer account opening, where it is necessary to verify and prove the identity of new customers who apply for new bank products and services. Digital identity is also invaluable for customer re-verification and authentication in instances where existing customers seek to make changes to their personal information.

Wealth management

Turning specifically to the wealth industry, the benefits are equally clear. The wealth arena is operating against a backdrop of unprecedented uncertainty as wealth transfer from baby boomers to millennials brings far-reaching changes to business models, in line with the expectation that a new generation requires new strategies and alternative data.

We commissioned research from global research and advisory firm Aite Group, which collated the findings from executive interviews with leading wealth management firms around the globe. The research found that 100% of respondents consider wealth transfer to be one of their top-three concerns. This report also revealed that financial advisors are becoming less product-focused and more relationship-oriented. As the wealth industry continues to shift away from products and towards services, the role of financial planning is taking center stage in the client/advisor relationship. Advisors are increasingly shifting focus from administrative duties and investment selection to client service. Digital identities can enable the shift of work from financial advisor to less expensive parts of the value chain, enabling them to concentrate on areas of added value.

A strong belief in technology

Our research shows that firms overwhelmingly believe in the power of technology in the fight against corruption: 97% of all respondents in our innovation survey said that technology can significantly help with financial crime prevention. There are of course still challenges in adopting digital solutions – nearly three-quarters (73%) reported concerns or obstacles when harnessing technological advancements to reduce risks and costs.

Respondents revealed that only about half (51%) of the data and legal documentation needed to carry out due diligence is obtained, but creating more difficulties, only 54% of this is in a digitized format. While remedies will take time, the digitization outlook is positive with 60% of organizations prioritizing automation and digitization for investment. Respondents indicated that spending on customer and third-party due diligence checks was expected to increase by 51% in the year following the survey, with technology being the biggest investment area. This data was gathered prior to the onset of COVID-19 and is expected to accelerate further as a result.

Digital identity solutions deliver diverse benefits

Digital identity solutions tick many boxes, including:

  • Faster turnaround times. Using digital identity accelerates the pace of business, benefits all stakeholders, and means that banks and FIs can onboard and service more customers, more efficiently.
  • Improved accuracy. Human error is unavoidable in manual identity procedures, but digital equivalents reduce manual keying errors, ultimately leading to better compliance.
  • Better security. Old school security features, including passwords and knowledge-based authentication (KBA), not only cause high levels of frustration among clients, but are also often unsecure.
  • More streamlined operational costs. Digital identity solutions boost efficiency levels, leading to more optimal deployment of resources and cost savings.
  • A more favorable customer experience. Faster turnaround times, fewer touch points and a seamless digital experience all contribute to higher levels of customer satisfaction.

Refinitiv’s digital identification and verification solution, Qual-ID delivers in each of these areas. Built specifically for FIs, Qual-ID enables secure, digital identity verification and screening to boost compliance team efficiency. The solution focuses exclusively on consumer identity. Qual-ID helps with identity verification, document verification, enables anti-impersonation checks to be performed in a variety of robust yet consumer friendly ways.Qual-ID also leverages our market-leading World-Check Risk Intelligence Database to enable screening for financial crime risk within the same solution.

World-Check delivers accurate and reliable information compiled by hundreds of specialist researchers and analysts across the globe, adhering to the most stringent research guidelines as they collate information from reliable and reputable sources, including watch lists, government records and media searches. Incorporating World-Check capabilities into Qual-ID means that customers can verify identity against trusted sources, proof legal documents and screen for regulatory and financial risk – all in one transaction, via one API.
This unique combination of elements delivers a holistic digital identity and screening solution that assists our clients to comply with their legal and regulatory requirements at the time of onboarding.

Technology’s significant and tangible impact

Only 53% of respondents in our innovation survey confirmed that they conduct KYC checks on client identity during onboarding but worse still, only 46% of these checks are considered successful. While these figures are alarmingly low, our research did reveal that those organizations that use technology are almost twice as successful at performing KYC checks on client identity (47%) as their counterparts who don’t use technology (28%). These findings are a clear indication of the significant, tangible impact that the right technology can have in the client identity space, and ultimately in thwarting financial crime.

What is certain is that the digital transformation will continue to gather momentum – digital commerce is expected to grow globally at more than a 20% CAGR by 2022, reaching nearly US5.8 trillion in value. Alongside this growth, another certainty is that sophisticated criminals will continue to exploit emerging technology to advance their illicit activity, both now and after the COVID-19 pandemic. Forward-thinking banks and FIs must therefore harness the power of the best available technology and solutions to prevent financial crime and protect their customers – and digital identity solutions offer an immediate opportunity for success in this critical area.

Online Open Evening, 19 November: Treasury Management & Corporate Finance by VU Amsterdam

| 12-11-2020 | VU Amsterdam |

Are you up for the next step in your career? Would you like to further develop your knowledge, skills and professional view on this fast changing world?

That’s why we invite you to join our Online Information Session on Thursday, November 19th 2020 from 19.00 – 20.00 hrs. Get inspired by our teachers and programme director and ask your questions during a livestream Zoom session.

REGISTER HERE FOR THE ONLINE INFORMATION SESSION

or

REQUEST THE BROCHURE ON OUR WEBSITE

We are looking forward to welcoming you at Online Information Session.

 

 

 

Miltenyi Biotec standardizes corporate payments and bank management with new payments platform

| 10-11-2020 | TIS |

Globally operating biotech company consolidates its banking landscape and creates more transparency and security in finance and international payments with TIS (Treasury Intelligence Solutions).

Walldorf, November 10, 2020. Miltenyi Biotec, headquartered in Bergisch Gladbach, Germany, has selected the TIS payments platform to manage all its bank accounts, bank statements, payments and conduct detailed financial analyses. The decision for TIS was made after thorough market observation. Its usability, high security standards, and effective SAP integration clearly stood out.

Miltenyi Biotec has grown steadily in recent years, especially in international markets. The company was founded in 1989 in Bergisch Gladbach, Germany, and specializes in products and processes for cellular research and cell therapy applications. Today, it has more than 3,000 employees worldwide, with 700 employees in research and clinical development. Miltenyi Biotec distributes its products through direct sales in 28 countries. The company’s ongoing growth, increasing number of affiliates, banking partners and accounts led to a need to standardize the company’s finance processes and to make them more efficient.

Besides accounts and payments consolidation, the company also wanted to make its payment processes more professional. In Germany, payment processes were structured with the Treasury Management System. Internationally, however, subsidiaries and affiliates used SAP and other ERP systems for payments and connected to banks via different online banking tools.

Daniel Pier, Group Leader Treasury at Miltenyi Biotec: “For our renewed banking landscape we looked for a centralized payments platform to make international payments more transparent and secure. With TIS, we can automate and standardize payments and monitor the processes from group treasury whenever necessary. For us, the core value of this solution is to enable us to follow closely the company-wide liquidity status at the push of a button.”

Jörg Wiemer, co-founder and Chief Strategy Officer at TIS: “For fast growing companies, it is especially important to manage resources efficiently and meanwhile also ensure security and transparency in corporate payments and liquidity management. With its effective SAP integration and extensive bank connectivity, TIS offers powerful benefits to its customers. We are happy to welcome Miltenyi Biotec, a leading innovator in biomedical research and cellular therapy, to the TIS community.”

About TIS

TIS (Treasury Intelligence Solutions GmbH), founded in Walldorf, Germany in 2010, is a global leader in managing corporate payments. The Financial Times named TIS as one of “Europe’s Fastest Growing Companies” for 2019 and 2020. Offered as Software-as-a-Service (SaaS), the TIS solution is a comprehensive, highly-scalable, cloud platform for company-wide payments and cash management. The TIS solution has been successfully used for many years in both large and medium-sized companies, including Adecco Group, Hugo Boss, Fresenius, Fugro, Lanxess, OSRAM and QIAGEN. More than 25% of DAX companies are already TIS customers.

Your world of Payments. ONE Login.

https://www.tis.biz

Press contact

Treasury Intelligence Solutions GmbH

Liang Fang

Altrottstrasse 31

69190 Walldorf

Germany

If you want to know more about TIS, visit www.tis.biz

Read the complete press release also here

 

Partner Interview Nomentia | Best-of-breed cash & treasury management solutions

10-11-2020 | treasuryXL | Nomentia |

It has been a crazy year for OpusCapita with a lot of positive changes. OpusCapita recently joined forces with Analyste and merged into Nomentia.

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

AN INTRODUCTION TO…

 

Meet Jukka Sallinen , Deputy CEO at Nomentia.

Jukka is a cash management domain expert with a strong hands-on background from international and complex payment factory and SWIFT projects. Previously Jukka had been working in various R&D roles, focusing on bank and ERP integrations and security topics.

” We are the bridge between finance and treasury ”

 

 

We asked him 9 questions. Let’s go!

INTERVIEW

1. Nomentia, what is the core business and what is its mission??

Our vision is to create solutions that make the life of modern CFO’s and Treasurers easier. We provide best-of-breed cash and treasury solutions that are the bridge between Finance and Treasury. Best-of-breed means that we focus on challenges that matter for modern CFO’s and treasurers to stay ahead of the curve and help their business to prosper.

We solve the challenges that professionals face in their daily work:

End-to-end & total visibility of cash flows is ever important. By visibility we of course mean visibility to cash flows, bank accounts, payments and future cash flows. But today, visibility is also more and more a risk & compliance related challenge. To whom I am going to pay? How do I mitigate the risk of fraud? Another visibility challenge is the whole topic of working capital where cash & liquidity forecasting & analytics solutions will play a role.

While visibility could be classified as internal challenge an example of external challenge Treasurers are facing is financial crime which is globally a trillion-dollar industry. Payment fraud and cybercrime faced by corporates remains significant and growing problem. To fight back corporates are mitigating these risks by harmonizing bank connectivity & payments into a centralized payment hub.

Finally, finance organizations seeking for return of investments from their Treasury or Finance solutions typically look increasing automation and efficiency in financial processes. Automating & harmonizing bank statement processing and accounts receivable reconciliation (automatic matching) holds typically largest savings potential.

By focusing on these challenges that matter to modern CFO and Treasurers, Nomentia is different. Monolithic finance and treasury systems are not quick and flexible enough to face the challenges of today and thus remain largely un-used.

2. OpusCapita recently formed a new company together with Analyste. What was the main reason for this? 

There is a growing need for choosing best-of-breed cloud solutions to solve particular business challenges today’s organizations are facing, which cannot be addressed by traditional monolithic tools. And treasury and finance organizations are no different. We are in a journey to create a leading cloud native cash management company as one.

3. What constitutes this Nordic powerhouse?

We took the best practices of both companies and combined them into one integrated solution for Finance and Treasury professionals. Nowadays, companies need multiple tools and systems. Is anyone convinced that the trend would go backwards? I mean look at your mobile phone. More apps keep coming and we as consumers add more. As business consumers we don’t want to be different, right?

A modern company needs a sales and customer relationship management, marketing automation tools, billing systems, project management tools, HR systems and various business solutions – and Finance & Treasury are no different. Often at some point we fall into the trap of looking for one platform to solve all challenges. But there never will be one, because we cannot possibly know everything a platform needs to solve to adapt in changing business environment. You end up using only small fraction of such monolithic platform with a very high price tag or building very customized solutions.

4.You talk about best-of-breed, what does it mean and what is the customer benefit?

Now, what does this mean for treasury and cash? A one-for-all solution would be a single solution to solve all your finance & treasury & cash management issues. That at least used to be sort of IT’s dream come true. One can clearly see benefits such as having less systems to integrate or less business partners to deal with. Also, commonly heard argument is to claim you would have “all the data at your hand in one place” which often shrinks into a mere sales argument.

While choosing best-of-breed companies can build network of integrated products and solutions. Benefits are often ones like paying and implementing only what you really need, much quicker implementation time and thus quick payback time, more standard features and no customization and vendor locking. Even the integration – a classical tarpit in IT projects – is often surprisingly simple because best of breed providers works very well together

Treasury or Finance is not an island. It is not the treasury that really is changing but the world around it. How companies are purchasing goods, sales are becoming digital, buying journey shifting to marketplaces and technology and software connecting everyone and concerning almost any business will sure keep changing the work that needs to be done by Treasury and Finance teams. Our claim is that networks and best-of-breed is more adapted to change.

5. How does the customer journey look like from start till end? And how long does a project take?

This really depends on the customers and their needs and how their internal processes look as well. We adjust to our customers’ needs.

6. Can you give us an outlook on the product developments that are scheduled?

The most important achievement is that we’ve now released our first versions from next generation Nomentia products that are based on a modern cloud architecture. We have been working on for the last four to five years to come up with the next generation – which is by the way already fifth generation if we look how our products have evolved from 80’s. Our customers should expect a whole new user experience from all our applications as many modules have not only got a completely new front end in HTML5 but a backend and business logic as well.

One of the new developments our customers should be looking carefully is that we are bringing better productized analytics capabilities to our next generation product as we speak. With analytics capabilities we mean payment behavior analytics and statistics, performance analysis and working capital related key performance indicators.

7. What has been your best experience in your career at OpusCapita, now Nomentia?

Next spring shall mark me already fifteen years in the company. Both OpusCapita and Analyste had gone such an exciting journey first as an independent company and then as part of larger enterprises, and finally again independent but together. It’s hard for me to rank all the memories I’ve collected with such a fantastic team and individuals that have participated into this journey. However, I still do remember with warmth some of the early development projects that helped us to become more international, such as joining to SWIFT Lite 2 program as global early adopters in 2013. And of course, winning the hearts of first global customers for the new service back then.

I’ve always got inspiration from challenging projects, working with new technology, and working to productize something that no one has done before. I feel that our employees at Nomentia are in a privileged position, since we work with such an exciting customer base and deliver software for so critical processes.

8. What has been the biggest success story of OpusCapita, now Nomentia, so far?

Although both Analyste and OpusCapita  have their roots in early 80’s we’re truly living the moments of biggest success right now. The company has never been filled with such a talented people, have such great solutions, and finally a market position to grow and create a European (or rather global) Fintech success story.

9. The year is 2025, what have been the OpusCapita/Nomentia successes over the last years?

The world of CFO and Treasurer is changing probably faster than never. Our five-year plan is obviously to grow significantly, which means double-digit revenue growth year-on-year. Much of our growth comes from international markets where I would expect us to cement our positions in several new markets as a viable and market leading choice of a modern CFO.

We will be significantly larger and stronger European Fintech company than we are today. When it comes to successes, I believe it is all about the journey rather than single events. We must work hard every day to win our customers hearts, and to have an atmosphere where employees find it exciting to wake up every Monday and be a part of our success story. Work hard, learn something new every day, and do it with a smile, and the journey will reward you.

 

Cashforce webinars on hot Treasury Topics | Anytime, Anyplace, and Anywhere

| 09-11-2020 | Cashforce

Cashforce is a smart cash flow management and cash flow forecasting platform for working capital intensive businesses. Cashforce is unique because it offers full transparency into what exactly drives the cash flow of complex. Over the past months, Cashforce has presented a few interesting Webinars on the following topics:

  • Working Capital Management
  • Treasury
  • Artificial Intelligence & Cash Forecasting
  • Supply Chain Management

Missed these Webinars? Don’t Worry.

Here is your opportunity to watch all these recordings:

✈️ Working Capital Management – Navigating Your Company Towards Brighter Skies 

? How Treasury Is Dealing with The New Normal 

☕️ Coffee & Algorithms: An AI-powered Cash Forecasting

? Building a Resilient Supply Chain 

 

Make sure to subscribe to their NextGen newsletter ? as well to stay informed on their new platform? and upcoming events: https://lnkd.in/dbCiCmQ

treasuryXL announces collaboration with Treasury Delta

| 5-11-2020 | treasuryXL | Treasury Delta | VENLO, The Netherlands, November 5, 2020 – treasuryXL, the community platform for everyone who is active in the world of treasury, and Treasury Delta, an Irish FinTech company, which has brought to market an innovative platform that uses digital technology to connect companies, banks and treasury management […]

Read more