Recording Webinar | How successful master data management can help you secure financial processes?

12-07-2022 | treasuryXL | Nomentia | LinkedIn |

Recently, treasuryXL partnered with Nomentia on a live webinar on how successful master data management can help you secure financial processes.

Watch the recording of this session for free now by clicking on the image below!



In this webinar, we discussed how you can manage your Master data in a safe way, how you can prevent fraud and sanction risks through the management of this data, and the subsequent processes that make use of your master data. This ranges from the creation of counterparties in your ERP to the safeguard checks in your payment process and system.

More specifically, we will discussed the following topics:

  • Introduction to Master Data management
  • Managing the counterparty Master Data in your ERP
  • Trends that companies face related to Master Data
  • High-risk processes using your master data
  • Steps to create a safe and secure culture within your company
  • Setting up appropriate processes and systems to enable security

Watch the recording now!


 

 

 

TIS Coffee Talk

11-07-2022 | treasuryXL | TIS | LinkedIn |

Attend TIS’ coffee talk tomorrow with Joerg Wiemer and Nicolas Christiaen to learn more about how their innovative and cloud-based solution is addressing treasury’s contemporary concerns in the areas of forecasting and liquidity management.

Tuesday, July 12th, 4-5PM CEST



Cash Forecasting & Liquidity Management with TIS

 

Speakers: Jörg WiemerCSO & Co-Founder of TIS.  Nicolas ChristiaenFounder of Cashforce

Date: Tuesday, July 12th, 10-11am EDT / 4-5pm CEST

Session Outline: Today, cash reporting and forecasting functions are still being performed manually by a significant portion of treasury groups, which represents a major pain point for CFOs and business leaders when attempting to make strategic financial decisions. These manual workflows also limit treasury’s bandwidth to focus on other tasks and impact their ability to effectively manage liquidity and working capital. However, the new suite of capabilities developed by TIS and Cashforce (acquired by TIS in Q2 2022) eliminate many of these inefficiencies and ultimately enable companies to gain quick and accurate insights to their financial position based on reliable payments and liquidity data.

Key Discussion Points: In this session, Jörg and Nicolas will:

  1. Explore the treasury industry’s outstanding need for improved cash forecasting solutions and workflows.
  2. Examine the modern challenges of collecting and aggregating the right data together to conduct forecasts.
  3. Showcase how the accuracy and completeness of this data is paramount to the success of treasury’s overall forecasting strategies.
  4. Highlight how a “data-first” approach to forecasting generally results in more accurate and actionable insights.

To better understand how global liquidity management and cash forecasting workflows are being transformed through TIS’ revolutionary data aggregation, analytics, and advanced AI / ML capabilities, use the below link to register.

We can’t wait for you to join us! 


 

Nicolas Christiaen on TIS’ acquisition of Cashforce

06-07-2022 | treasuryXL | TIS | CashForce | LinkedIn |

Would you like more insights into TIS’s acquisition of CashForce? Hear from Nicolas Christiaen, CEO and founder of Cashforce, as he describes the inherent synergies between the two companies and what may subsequently be accomplished as a result of the acquisition.

Watch the video below to hear from Nicolas


 

 

“Our best-of-breed solutions are very complementary to each other: Being that natural synergy”

 

 

 

Nicolas Christiaen, CEO and founder of Cashforce



 

Hedge Trackers, a GTreasury Company, Offers Advice to Treasurers Amid Interest Rate Uncertainty

28-06-2022 | treasuryXL | GTreasury | LinkedIn |

With interest rates rising and remaining unpredictable, corporate treasurers need to have a hedging plan in place. For many, this can be easier said than done.



Farah Lotia, the Director of Interest rate and Quantitative Analytics at Hedge Trackers, recently spoke with both Treasury Today and Euromoney Magazine about the purpose of interest rate hedging and how they can use it to their advantage.

Hedge Trackers was recently acquired by GTreasury.

GTreasury Adds Victoria Blake as Chief Product Officer; Ashley Pater Becomes General Manager at Hedge Trackers

21-06-2022 | treasuryXL | GTreasury | LinkedIn |

The product leaders bring veteran experience into their new roles, as GTreasury expands its treasury and risk management solutions and services for treasury teams and the office of the CFO



CHICAGO, Ill. – June 21, 2022 – GTreasury, a treasury and risk management platform provider, today announced that it has named Victoria Blake as GTreasury’s Chief Product Officer, and Ashley Pater as General Manager at Hedge Trackers. Recently acquired by GTreasury, Hedge Trackers is the global leader in accounting, consulting, and software services that protect clients against financial risk.

Victoria Blake joins GTreasury with more than 20 years of experience and success in product leadership roles across several SaaS and technology companies. Blake comes to GTreasury from Zapproved, where she served as the Vice President of Product. During her tenure at the e-discovery software provider, she led high-level strategy development, product definition, and market-facing thought leadership and vision. Before Zapproved, Blake was responsible for defining next-generation cloud services offerings as the Vice President of Product Management at Metal Toad, an AWS Consulting Partner. Blake has also held product management and leadership positions at WebMD Health Services, Jive Software, and Walker Tracker.

As GTreasury’s Chief Product Officer, Blake will lead the company’s global product and UX teams in developing and delivering innovative new solutions for GTreasury’s customers and partners. From modern automated treasury and transaction management to AI-powered SmartPredictions™ cash forecasting and visibility, GTreasury’s SaaS platform empowers treasury teams and the office of the CFO with the future-proof technology and capabilities required to drive confident financial decision-making. GTreasury has also continued to expand its broad ecosystem of connected partner technologies, via API integrations with ERPs, banks, and other external providers where instant data connectivity maximizes customer efficiencies.

“GTreasury has built its reputation as a leading treasury and risk management platform by harnessing innovative cloud, AI, machine learning, and emerging technologies that move our industry forward,” said Victoria Blake, CPO, GTreasury. “Just as importantly, GTreasury has always focused on product usability and ensuring that its powerful tools are always easily accessible and seamlessly connected for the teams that rely on them. I look forward to building on what GTreasury has created over the past three decades, and delivering even more next-generation tools to make CFOs and treasury teams more successful.”

Ashley Pater is now the General Manager of Hedge Trackers after more than a decade of leadership roles within GTreasury. Pater most recently served as GTreasury’s Chief Product Officer, where she was responsible for aligning product vision and strategy to the company’s business objectives. Pater previously held leadership positions in GTreasury’s marketing and account management functions, focusing on building global brand awareness, lead generation, event management, and cross-sell programs.

Pater will oversee daily business operations and lead growth strategy around Hedge Trackers’ FX, interest rate, and commodity price risk management services and consulting. Pater will also ensure alignment and integration opportunities within the broader GTreasury organization. Hedge Trackers offers best-in-class expertise and technical depth in meeting today’s unprecedented demand for effective hedging strategies, identifying exposure, managing risk, and meeting compliance and audit requirements. Under Pater’s leadership, Hedge Trackers will focus on bolstering its risk management expertise and bringing new solutions to market across the company’s risk product suite.

“Combining the strengths of GTreasury and Hedge Trackers makes us the clear market leader when it comes to both our treasury risk management products and our consulting acumen,” said Ashley Pater, General Manager, Hedge Trackers. “Today’s CFOs and financial leaders understand that risk management and hedging capabilities are critical to navigating volatile markets and achieving larger business goals. I’m excited to further our solutions and insight to equip customers with the solutions required for effectively and cost-efficiently managing their risk.”

“Both Victoria and Ashley possess the clarity of vision required to advance our GTreasury and Hedge Trackers products to meet our customers’ evolving needs today and well into the future—and both bring relevant, experienced, and proven leadership to accomplish those goals,” said Renaat Ver Eecke, CEO, GTreasury. “I’m glad to welcome Victoria and Ashley into their new roles and look forward to what’s to come from GTreasury and Hedge Trackers.”



About GTreasury

GTreasury is committed to connecting treasury and digital finance operations by providing a world-class SaaS treasury and risk management system and integrated ecosystem where cash, debt, investments and exposures are seamlessly managed within the office of the CFO. GTreasury delivers intelligent insights, while connecting financial value chains and extending workflows to third-party systems, exchanges, portals and services. Headquartered in Chicago, with locations serving EMEA (London) and APAC (Sydney and Manila), GTreasury’s global community includes more than 800 customers and 30+ industries reaching 160+ countries worldwide. Visit GTreasury.com

TIS acquires Cashforce, an AI-powered provider of cash management and forecasting solutions.

17-06-2022 | treasuryXL | Cashforce | TIS

 

Revolutionizing Global Liquidity Management for Treasury and Finance

 

Treasury Intelligence Solutions (TIS), a global leader in enterprise payment optimization, today announced their acquisition of Cashforce, an AI-powered provider of cash management and forecasting solutions.

This acquisition will see Cashforce’s leading cloud solution – currently deployed at many of the largest and most sophisticated corporate treasuries in the world – become integrated with TIS’ SaaS payments platform. This unified solution will provide enterprises with an unmatched suite of capabilities for cash management, global payments, and fraud mitigation along with superior connectivity, workflows, and reporting functions.

Over the past few years, TIS and Cashforce have collaborated closely to provide a complementary offering for treasury and finance teams. These efforts were met with immediate success in the market as demand for improved cash management and forecasting tools has risen sharply. Now, TIS’ acquisition of Cashforce presents the perfect opportunity to integrate both products together as part of a more complete offering.

For the thousands of enterprise treasury and finance practitioners who currently use TIS, this acquisition provides access to faster and more accurate cash reporting, forecasting, and working capital management. To date, cash positioning and forecasting are still being performed manually by many treasury groups, which represents a major pain point for CFOs and business leaders when attempting to make strategic financial decisions. However, the robust capabilities provided by Cashforce eliminate many of these inefficiencies and ultimately enable companies to gain quick and accurate insights into their financial position based on reliable payments and liquidity data.

According to Erik Masing, Group CEO of TIS, “Cashforce has been a premier partner of TIS for several years and has contributed significantly to the cash forecasting and management capabilities we offer clients. The acquisition is a natural extension of our business and will allow TIS to further integrate Cashforce’s solution with our platform in order to offer advanced forecasting and data management capabilities to all our clients. This means enterprises can significantly reduce complexity in their global payments and cash management tech stacks by leveraging standardization and transparency afforded by a single, elegant solution.”

 

 

For Cashforce, the acquisition means that existing clients can now supplement their robust forecasting capabilities with TIS’ industry-leading payments and bank connectivity features. As explained by Nicolas Christiaen, Founder and CEO of Cashforce, “Giving businesses complete visibility over their cash and liquidity data has always been the core objective of Cashforce. While we have spent years perfecting our capabilities in this regard, TIS has been strengthening their suite of payments, bank connectivity, and cash management tools. When combined, these two sets of capabilities form the ideal solution for global treasury and finance teams to achieve full control and visibility over their entire payments and liquidity architecture – including all entities, back-office systems, and banks.”

With the added capabilities of Cashforce’s solution, TIS now offers a single, scalable cloud platform for clients to address needs in the following areas:

  • End-to-end payment processing and bank statement management
  • Global bank connectivity and financial messaging
  • Real-time cash positioning and liquidity management
  • Multifaceted cash forecasting, cashflow analytics, and working capital management
  • Bank account management and bank documentation management
  • Payment compliance and sanctions screening control
  • Treasury security, regulatory compliance, and fraud mitigation tools

For more information on TIS’ acquisition of Cashforce and the advantages our combined solution will provide to enterprise treasury, finance, and executive teams, contact us at [email protected] or by using the information found on our website.

 

About TIS

TIS is reimagining the world of enterprise payments through a cloud-based platform uniquely designed to help global organizations optimize payments, manage cash visibility, and mitigate risk. Corporations, banks, and business vendors leverage TIS to transform how they connect global accounts, collaborate on payment processes, execute outbound payments, analyze cash flow and compliance data, and improve critical outbound payment functions. With $2 trillion in payments processed annually, the TIS corporate payments platform helps businesses improve operational efficiency, lower risk, manage liquidity, gain a strategic advantage – and ultimately achieve enterprise payment optimization.

Visit us for more information at https://www.tispayments.com.

 

 

 

 

The Relentless Rise of Real-Time Data


16-06-2022 | treasuryXL | Refinitiv | LinkedIn |

 

Demand for real-time data is growing fast as financial firms face regulatory, trading, operational and competitive challenges. Rob Lane, head of real-time feeds at Refinitiv, discusses the changing data needs of banks and buy-side firms and how the cloud is helping improve access to a key source of competitive advantage in pursuit of more informed and agile decision-making.

Read more

Build vs Buy: How Should Treasury Teams Upgrade Their Bank Connectivity & Payments Stack?

15-06-2022 | treasuryXL | TIS | LinkedIn |

This blog highlights the primary considerations that treasury and IT teams must make when determining whether to build custom in-house bank connectivity and payments solutions or contract the services and software of a specialized 3rd party vendor. After evaluating the main benefits and drawbacks of each option, we provide a list of helpful questions for practitioners to consider as they decide whether building or purchasing a solution best suits their needs.

Source



How Does the “Build vs Buy” Debate Typically Surface Within Organizations?

In today’s remote and digitally operated business environment, it’s no secret that organizations have grown deeply reliant on technology to manage and automate their core treasury and finance functions.

Realistically, a “modern” company operating in 2022 will be doing business through a myriad of banks, accounts, currencies, and entities. They will also likely have hundreds or thousands of vendors, partners, and customers within their network. As a result, digital payments and cashflows are moving in and out of the business constantly, and every movement must be monitored and controlled by treasury teams that often consist of just a few employees.

Because of treasury’s limited personnel bandwidth, any issues with adopting the right bank connectivity and payments stack to automate their core operations almost always lead to excess complexity and manual strain. It can also result in significant security and compliance gaps, along with general inefficiency across crucial processes like transaction processing, liquidity management, balance reporting, and cash forecasting.

But while most treasury and IT groups today can agree that developing a robust connectivity and payments stack is critically important, each internal stakeholder will likely have their own idea regarding what the “best-fit” version of this technology stack actually looks like.

Why is this?

As companies grow over time, the systems they use to manage payments and connect with their banks must evolve accordingly. Because managing a few bank accounts and transactions in a single country and currency is a fundamentally different task compared to managing dozens of banks, hundreds of accounts, and thousands of payments across numerous countries and currencies, companies cannot rely on the same solutions and structure they’ve always used to sustain them as they scale.

Instead, in order to maintain compatibility with new payment formats and channels like ISO 20022 and SWIFT GPI, connect with regional payment networks like NACHA and EBICS, or accommodate custom bank connectivity protocols (Host-2-Host / SFTPAPIs, etc.), growing enterprises will inevitably reach a point where their existing payments and banking architecture must undergo a significant overhaul.

Complexity grows as you scale. Scaling from just a few bank accounts, back office systems, and funds transfers being executed in a single country to managing dozens of international banks and systems, hundreds of accounts, and thousands of payments globally requires a drastically different tech stack for treasury.

However, as this evolution occurs and internal stakeholders recognize the need to upgrade their connectivity architecture, disagreements often arise over which vendor or “type” of solution is the best fit. Given that there are hundreds of available 3rd party solutions that could potentially address treasury’s requirements, as well as a variety of internally developed applications that could be created and deployed by IT teams, it is common for different stakeholders to have contrasting views over which option is the smartest choice.

This is where the “Build vs Buy” technology argument most frequently comes into play.

 

Understanding Both Sides of the Build vs Buy Argument

As organizations recognize the need to upgrade their payments and connectivity capabilities, there are two main approaches they could leverage to address the issue. The first is to use internal IT resources and expertise to build a customized solution for treasury, and the second is to purchase a specialized solution from a 3rd party provider.

But which option is the best choice?

Let’s quickly review the key benefits and drawbacks of each option.

The Pros and Cons of Building vs Buying a Treasury Solution

Building an Internal Connectivity Solution

Organizations that prefer to create their own custom connectivity solutions internally using IT resources and expertise will likely have a greater ability to customize the offering in a manner that best addresses all their needs. To date, several prominent ERPs offer modules or plugins that give  IT staff the ability to build custom formats and configure their own connectivity protocols. However, this option requires a significant amount of bandwidth and maintenance from treasury and IT teams, as well as a high degree of expertise and technical prowess to support the solution over time. The below pros and cons list highlights this reality in more detail.

PROS

  • IT and Treasury teams know firsthand what the main requirements and preferences are.
  • Support and maintenance for the solution can be handled internally.
  • The solution can be customized to fit the exact needs of the enterprise.
  • Complexity and redundancy regarding unnecessary features are kept to a minimum.

CONS

  • IT and treasury teams may not have the bandwidth to build their own internal solution.
  • Fixing bugs and patches requires internal support, which is not always readily available.
  • Not all internal teams have the expertise required to build complex connectivity solutions.
  • Supporting the need for new formats and connectivity protocols requires more custom work.
  • Scaling over time requires constant upkeep and maintenance from internal resources.

Adopting a 3rd Party Connectivity Solution

Compared to building an internal solution, adopting a 3rd party connectivity and payments solution usually requires less of treasury and IT’s time, and there is less effort required to develop, implement, and maintain the solution. However, there is also the chance that this solution will require the purchase of redundant or unnecessary features. At the same time, improper or incomplete implementation of a 3rd party solution can cause severe integration, security, and compliance issues over time. More about these pros and cons are highlighted below.

PROS

  • IT and Treasury teams have a minimized role in the solution’s implementation and upkeep.
  • Dedicated customer support staff can help resolve issues and requests.
  • Updates and patches are normally handled externally by the vendor.
  • Specialist functionality is pre-packaged to address best practices in connectivity and payments.
  • Liability on the company to maintain, host, and secure the solution is largely outsourced.

CONS

  • Specific customization of the product for treasury teams cannot always be assured.
  • Reliance on 3rd party vendors for support and upkeep may result in delayed responses and feedback.
  • Tech complexity can quickly escalate if companies start adopting numerous 3rd party solutions to manage various functions, especially if they do not integrate well with one another.
  • Using external solutions for data and payments can create additional security risks and compliance issues.

 

As showcased by the above bullets, a company’s decision to build or buy its payments and connectivity solutions should always depend on its unique circumstances. For instance, a company with sufficient IT personnel and internal expertise might have the bandwidth to create and maintain a solution on its own. However, if treasury and IT teams are already exasperated with their current list of responsibilities and don’t have the time or expertise necessary to create and maintain their own solution, it probably makes more sense to begin evaluating the services of a 3rd party provider.

For treasury teams who are presently evaluating their options and need help deciding on the best course of action, the following considerations will help provide more clarity during the decision-making process.

Elements to consider when evaluating build vs buy

 

A Checklist to Walk Through When Deciding to Build or Buy Your Next Connectivity Solution

1. Validate the Need for New Technology

Many organizations have their eye on new technology before identifying any legitimate business need. Sometimes this “cart before the horse” approach is due to rigid business processes, lack of technical knowledge, or pure product hype. Decision-makers are very often awed by product suite success stories, dynamite product demonstrations, and industry analysts’ evaluation of technology—even when they haven’t formally identified a need for the technology.

To avoid these pitfalls, treasury and IT teams need to first validate the need for upgraded connectivity and payment protocols, prior to even beginning to evaluate which solution makes the most sense.

Last, but not least, tech leaders need to provide an estimated return on investment (ROI) for any new solution, along with a description of how ROI will be measured. It is surprising how many programs are initiated without considering ROI or added business value upfront. Many of these projects consume a lot of budget and time before leaders realize that either the solution will not add value or there is not a legitimate business need.

 

2. Identify Core Connectivity & Payment Requirements

In large organizations, pinpointing core connectivity requirements is often easier said than done. Still, it is a critically important step to take before deciding to implement a new solution. A core business requirement is one that must be supported by the solution to continue functioning as intended. For multinational organizations, core connectivity requirements may involve compatibility with numerous format types (EDI, BAI, SWIFT MT, ISO 20022, etc.) as well as numerous bank channels (SWIFT, H2H, EBICS, etc.) and back-office integrations (APIs and plugins for ERPs or TMSs).

Although determining treasury’s exact connectivity requirements may be difficult, it is extremely important to identify these core functional requirements first—not technology or design requirements. This is the only way to ensure unnecessary or redundant functionality is not purchased erroneously, and also ensures that critical requirements are never accidentally overlooked and unaddressed through whatever solution is ultimately chosen.

 

3. Consider Your Technology Architecture Requirements

Going a step further than the above point, it’s safe to assume that organizations are already using technology to enable other business processes. To reduce the cost and liability of this technology, your organization has also likely adopted standards related to how internal solutions are implemented and maintained.

As such, it is extremely important to identify any architectural requirements or standards that a solution must adhere to before determining if a 3rd party solution or an internal solution is the best choice. Some factors that may restrict the solution choice are as follows:

  • Information security strategy, compliance policies, and privacy standards (SOC 1 & 2, GDPR, etc.)
  • The state of current / planned systems with which the solution will be interfacing
  • What the preferred hosting structure is for the new solution (on-premise, SaaS, etc.)
  • Type and complexity of integrations that must be supported by the solution
  • Operating systems in use by the organization and their partners/banks/customers/entities

 

4. Examine & Evaluate Existing Solutions FIRST

At this point, a business need has been pinpointed, ROI has been estimated, and both core business and architectural restrictions have been identified. Leaders should now take a good look at existing systems.

It is not uncommon that different departments or entities of a large, global organization are not aware of what systems exist in other areas of the company. As a result, businesses will often implement multiple versions or forms of the same technology, only to discover that another system within the organization could have supported treasury’s new requirements with little to no modification. Thus, before deciding on the “best-fit” solutions approach, you should determine if any existing system(s) within the organization can be easily scaled or extended to meet your business need.

 

5. Compare In-House Expertise & Bandwidth Relative to Current AND Future Capabilities Required

One major factor that can significantly reduce the ROI of a custom-built solution (and in many cases, ultimately causes the project to fail) is the lack of available personnel with proper skill sets. In reality, the process of designing and deploying custom connectivity solutions that are both scalable and extensible is a massive undertaking for both treasury and IT. Unless one of your business areas is product development or you have an abundance of available IT support, there is an extremely high probability that your operations and maintenance technology resources will not be able to build, sustain, and support an internal solution, especially as new needs and requirements arise over time.

It is never profitable to let personnel gain these skills and experience by developing business-essential systems. Yet, more often than not, decision-makers see the short-term cost differences between an internally-built vs 3rd party solution and decide to try and build their own in order to save money. However, unless you’re supremely confident in the skillsets and bandwidth of both your treasury and IT teams, this option is not recommended.

 

Why TIS is the Ideal Provider for Global Payments, Liquidity Management, & Bank Connectivity

Ultimately, any organization evaluating whether to build or buy its next solution will have to closely analyze its own operations in order to make the best decision.

In cases where organizations require support for a complex array of payments and bank connectivity protocols and are open to considering a 3rd party vendor, they should closely evaluate the capabilities provided by TIS.

The cloud-based, fully-supported platform provided by TIS offers a global, multi-channel, and multi-bank connectivity ecosystem that streamlines and automates the processing of a company’s payments across all their global entities and systems. By sitting above an enterprise’s technology stack and connecting with all their back-office, banking, and 3rd party solutions, TIS effectively breaks down department and geographic silos to allow 360-degree visibility and control. To date, the ~200 organizations that have integrated TIS with their global ERPs, TMSs, and banking landscape have achieved near-100% real-time transparency into their payments and liquidity. This has benefitted a broad variety of internal stakeholders and has also enabled them to access information through their platform of choice since the data that passes through TIS is always delivered back to the originating systems.

 

TIS Simplifies Global Payments & Liquidity

Because of the deep connections that TIS maintains with internal systems such as ERPs or TMSs, external banks, and 3rd party vendors, the process of managing payments is simplified for every internal stakeholder. C-suite executives, treasury, accounting, AP, legal, HR, and other key personnel can access whatever financial data they need, exactly when they need it. And by automating this flow of information for both inbound and outbound payments, TIS provides the control and flexibility that enterprises need to function at their highest level.

Finally, with the global payments data we have amassed and the decades of experience our team has in orchestrating enterprise payments, we are uniquely equipped to help enterprises accurately benchmark their payments performance and provide tailored advice on how to optimize, grow, and mature. Ultimately, this rich data and deep experience are what enable us to continually provide industry-leading payment solutions and support to our enterprise customers.

In the digital world of enterprise payments, TIS is here to help you reimagine and simplify.

For more information about how TIS can help you, visit our website or browse our latest resources!


Treasury in transition – explore the agenda for EuroFinance International Treasury Management

13-06-2022 | Eurofinance | treasuryXL | LinkedIn

 

Featuring keynote speakers, Guy Verhofstadt and Göran Carstedt…

The 31st annual EuroFinance International Treasury Management returns in-person this September 21st-23rd in Vienna. With treasury changing like never before, join more than 2000 attendees, including 150 world-class speakers for transformative insights and the year’s best networking.



  • Inspirational headline speakers– including member of European Parliament, Guy Verhofstadt and and one of the world’s top business minds, former head of IKEA, Göran Carstedt
  • Practical insights from case studies across 5 streams– explore the latest innovations driving change and how to apply them to your treasury
  • The new Future of Money Stage– a dynamic experience for disruptive ground-breaking ideas from crypto to the token economy
  • Meet with more than 100 banking and tech partnerson the exhibition floor and  join forces to innovate and shape the future

Learn from the experiences of more than 150 best-in-class treasurers including:
– Abraham Geldenhuys, VP and group treasurer, Kongsberg Automotive
– Yang Xu, SVP, corporate development and global treasurer, Kraft Heinz
– Alex Ashby, Head of treasury – Markets, Tesco
– Debbie Kaya, Senior director of treasury, Cisco Systems, Inc.
– Daniel Melski, VP finance and treasurer, Church & Dwight Co., Inc.
– Angel Cheung, Assistant treasurer, John Lewis Partnership

For more information and to register, visit: https://www.eurofinance.com/international

 

TreasuryXL contacts can claim a 10% discount with code: MKTG/TXL10 on top of the early-bird price which expires on July 29th – a combined saving of over €2000.  Register here today.

We hope to welcome you in Vienna.

The EuroFinance Team


About EuroFinance

EuroFinance, part of The Economist Group, is a leading global provider of treasury, cash management and risk events, research and training. With over 30 years of experience, our mission is to bring together the brightest minds and most influential voices in treasury. Through in-depth research with 1,000 corporate treasury professionals every year, we have a unique insight into the trends and developments within the profession and an unrivalled global viewpoint.

Contacts

Marianne Ford
Senior Marketing Manager
EuroFinance

Economist Impact
[email protected]


Closing Loops: Connecting FX Hedging and Cash Forecasts

08-06-2022 | treasuryXL | Cashforce | LinkedIn |

 

How one member uses Cashforce to save time and money on FX trades—and helped create an automated hedging process.

One assistant treasurer at a recent NeuGroup virtual interactive session said that her primary project for 2021 is “to make treasury as no-touch as possible.” This is a common theme for treasurers recently, though it’s not always clear where to start. Her first step was to seek potential connections in existing processes and platforms—which led to an overhauled and streamlined process for foreign exchange hedging.
  • The member already was using Cashforce, a fintech that allows deeper analysis of cash flow, to assist in cash flow forecasting, and saw potential in connecting it to Citibank’s CitiFX Pulse platform through the company’s TMS.
  • Through collaboration with Cashforce, Citi and her TMS, she was essentially able to turn the company’s hedging policy into an algorithm that reads the forecast and will potentially execute or propose trades all on its own.

From forecasts to forex. The member said this is only possible because Cashforce can forecast at a high level of granularity. The AT said she was “really lucky” that the tools work together so well.

  • “The forecast at that level of detail is a forecast in document currency,” she said. “And because I can have forecasting at nearly an invoice level, I know what that currency is going to be.”
  • Through the forecast, she said, the company is able to see what its FX position is going to be. “Then if I layer over what hedge I might already have in place, it will be able to tell me what are my gaps,” she said.
  • “The idea is to send it out so that we could auto-trade to fill the gaps below a certain threshold, let’s say 100 grand or less, and review above that just to check the data before we trade.”

A closed loop. Nicolas Christiaen, Cashforce’s CEO, said that, before this project, the member’s process was “very disconnected,” but all it took was connecting the dots.

  • “On the data input side, the ERP, TMS, P&L and bank statements are now put through [Cashforce’s] transformation layer, which results in a cash flow forecast,” he said. “As is very specific in this case, it’s a forecast by currency, by month.”
  • Currently, the company then uploads this forecast back into its TMS for review, and manually executes FX trades based on the company’s hedging policy.
  • “When these hedges are executed, the hedge amounts will pass back into Cashforce via the TMS, closing the loop,” Mr. Christiaen said.

A step further. With the proposed system that the member has designed with Citi, the company could include its hedging policies as a rules-based program in CitiFX Pulse that can read this forecast.

  • It would then “put in place the instruments used for the hedges for the thresholds that need to be taken into account,” Mr. Christiaen said. “Which ultimately results in a proposal.”
  • The chart below demonstrates the vision: As the data feeds into Cashforce, which outputs a forecast, that forecast is reviewed by the member and uploaded to CitiFX Pulse, which can automatically execute or propose FX hedges.

Constant change. Automation is “an awful lot to bite off,” the member said, and recommends starting slow on this kind of process:

  • The first step is to test what systems you already have. “A lot of us have pockets in the organization of different systems that can be leveraged. Some of them can’t do what they say they can or aren’t quite what you need—but sometimes you get lucky, as we did.”
    • She said it is also an opportunity for treasury to work with fintech partners to build exactly what it needs.
  • Collaboration and clear communication with IT is “super important,” which she learned the hard way. “Despite really clear instructions from Cashforce on the size of server we would need, [IT] gave us a quarter of that size and we now need a bigger size,” the AT said.
  • She warns that, although automation opportunities are promising, it’s not always smooth sailing. “Be aware of the opportunities, but also be aware of the work: automation is doable but takes an awful lot of time.”
  • “As the business changes, the structure changes as well,” she said. “The only constant within treasury is change.”

Article originally published by Neugroup here.