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

25-02-2021 | treasuryXL | Kyriba |

4th March • 2pm GMT • 3pm CET

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

The agenda will follow:

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

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

Date:

March 4, 2pm GMT/ 3pm CET

Contact:

The Case for a Global Payment Hub

02-02-2021 | treasuryXL | Kyriba |

Global corporate payments technology is changing at a rapid pace. So rapidly, in fact, that internal IT-managed platforms are not able to keep up and the challenges that ensue are left for the IT team to sort out.

These challenges include:

  • Insufficient Controls
    It is up to IT to protect assets from digitized fraud capabilities that are able to penetrate the standard four-eye principal and, in order to do so, IT will need to enhance controls.
  • Custom Banking Formats
    Each bank has its own specific requirements that, even within the same bank, may differ depending on payment type and bank branch location. The number of custom formats needed can make it difficult for IT to meet all global banking format customization requirements.
  • Infrastructure Costs
    The cost of building and maintaining payment connectivity infrastructure, especially given the customization requirements, can easily exceed what a company anticipated.
  • Delayed Project
    Established bank connections will need to be rebuilt as ERPs migrate to the cloud, which can greatly delay the project. And, rebuilding the connection is often made more difficult as employees leave and retire, taking with them the tribal knowledge of how the original architecture was deployed.

Let’s evaluate some of these in the context of the return on investment (ROI) your organisation would achieve by deploying a connectivity as a service global payment hub.

Enhancing Controls

The most common vulnerabilities to fraud include technical, process and simple human mistakes – and, worst case scenario, internal collusion. All of these become significantly more vulnerable when corporations rely on internally built systems and processes that depend on human control workflows with multiple checkpoints.

Today’s fraudsters are more sophisticated, able to easily penetrate corporate infrastructure and pass internal human dependent control workflows. They utilize social networks to penetrate organisations with phishing schemes that include email, as well as deep fake voice simulation software via phone that can sound exactly like your CFO or CEO requesting payment execution.

The best payment hub solution will aid the human dependent controls with machine learning technology, bringing to their attention anomalies that they must further investigate.  The solution must be able to keep up with technical assets at the fraudster’s disposal – for example, based on history alerts related to banking change and volume as well as OFAC exception.  Payment hubs with machine learning capabilities have demonstrated the ability to reduce corporate fraud exposure by at least 70%.

Payment Connectivity Complexities  

Global banking format customization requirements are extremely complex with very limited, if any, corporate tribal knowledge related to the technical architecture and deployment. Each bank has their own specific requirements. In many cases, there may even be differences of formats within the same bank depending on branch locations. The cost of building and maintaining payment connectivity infrastructure given the customization requirements can be in the millions of dollars.

Payment hubs eliminate this cost in several ways:

  • IT no longer has to manage bank connectivity with outsourced development and maintenance of bank payment formats to the hub solution. Developing this internally can take up to 9 months for each bank at a cost of up to $150K+ per bank, not including any ERP consultant fees.  A payment hub solution will be able to deploy connectivity within weeks and provide 24/7/365 maintenance and support at a fraction of the cost.
  • Multiple systems that previously sent payments to banks can be consolidated down to one. IT will only have to manage one format which is to the payment hub.
  • Treasury can optimise banking services and remove duplication caused by the multitude of systems (including treasury and ERPs) that connected to the banks. This will standardise and enhance controls and auditability of internal workflows.

ERP Cloud Transformation

If you are considering an ERP cloud transformation or are in the process of the transition, all of the bank connectivity that is established in the current environment will have to be re-built.  Given the considerations highlighted earlier tied to the complexities, re-building all of the connections internally will be costly and risk go-live.

Connectivity as a service with the right payment hub will de-risk and accelerate cloud transformation projects. In fact, payment hub solutions provide a more than 80% improvement in time-to-value related to payment go live. This return on investment is inclusive of internal man-hour efforts, external consultant fee elimination, as well as the speed of bank on boarding timelines from up to 9 months to only a few weeks.

In conclusion, payment hubs enhance controls and keep up with the ever-changing fraud environment, eliminate any risk tied to business continuity due to internal infrastructure or tribal knowledge, and finally enable a successful ERP cloud transformation deployment eliminating any risk to internal timelines or objectives.

 

Making a Successful Transformation to SAP S/4HANA

19-01-2021 | treasuryXL | Kyriba |

SAP S/4HANA is SAP’s next-generation enterprise resource planning (ERP) system for large businesses. Many organizations that are currently using the SAP business suite are looking to upgrade to the new solution, often as part of a wider digital transformation.

As a digital core, S/4HANA is the link between the key business functions within an organization, including finance, marketing, manufacturing, procurement and sales. As well as connecting to the SAP ecosystem, it can connect to other cloud-based systems. It harnesses intelligent technologies such as artificial intelligence, machine learning and the internet of things to automate operations, and it connects data, devices and people in real-time.

S/4HANA enables digital transformation in several ways. It reduces an organization’s overall costs, drives business innovation, supports transformation projects and frees up the IT budget for investment in emerging technologies. Yet, while there is a strong business case in favor of S/4HANA, companies often struggle to identify which functionality they need from the platform, and when and how they should migrate.

Why Migrate Now?

Digital transformation is accelerating all the time and S/4HANA is “mission-critical” for digital transformation, explained Promantus’ director and head of Europe, Vikash Roy Chowdhury, during a recent webinar hosted by SAPinsider and sponsored by Kyriba. He added that as S/4HANA optimizes an organization’s digital transformation strategy, “it provides identity, visibility and innovation”.

There are many reasons why organizations should begin their migration to S/4HANA now:

  1. To take advantage of the digital economy and be quicker at getting new products and solutions to market.
     As digital transformation continues to gather pace, business processes will be further automated and new data flows will emerge, enabling organizations to gain better insights, improve their decision-making and foster business innovation.
  2. To avoid falling behind in the digital transformation journey.
    SAP will continue to provide standard support for its on-premise ERP system, ERP Central Component (ECC), until 2027. On the face of it, this commitment may seem a reason for organizations not to migrate to S/4HANA, but there are risks associated with continuing with a platform that has been earmarked for retirement. One risk is that organizations will get a poor return on investment in terms of their technological spend. Another is that they are overtaken by rivals that use S/4HANA’s state-of-the-art functionality to run their businesses more efficiently.
  3. To save money.
    The cost of implementing S/4HANA, and migrating to the platform, is likely to increase substantially over the next few years, as more and more businesses compete to secure resources that can support them with transformation.

The Challenges of an ERP Transformation

Migration to S/4HANA can present some significant challenges to businesses. Typically, the biggest challenge is resolving data issues. Other challenges include a lack of qualified resources, integration of legacy systems, accommodation of custom coding, and understanding the impact of S/4HANA on processes, especially where functionality has changed.

And treasuries have specific requirements in relation to an S/4HANA migration. They want bank connectivity and the integration of their global banks inside the S/4HANA infrastructure. They also want to see accelerated time-to-value (the rate at which the business benefits from the migration) so that they can free up resources from routine work to focus on more strategic activities, such as helping their organization to navigate the Covid-19 pandemic.

Unfortunately, bank connectivity can be one of the most difficult aspects of migration to S/4HANA, or any other ERP for that matter. It can take months – or even years – to achieve. “A lot of times… what keeps these ERP projects from going live is still waiting for the banks,” says Steven Otwell, director of payments at Kyriba.

For this reason, Kyriba is strategically collaborating with Promantus to support migration to S/4HANA from a treasury perspective.

Support for Treasuries

Fortunately, automation can ease the migration process. Promantus has developed a comprehensive S/4HANA transformation tool called ProAcc, which quickly and seamlessly automates all the migration phases, including assessment, pre-conversion, post-conversion and validation.

ProAcc provides a detailed assessment report that includes tailored recommendations for optimization and alternative scenarios, based on the current state. It also offers a single-view dashboard that gives full visibility around the migration process, from discovery to go-live. Furthermore, it acts as a single repository for the sequence of automated activities that take place, including prediction, monitoring, data snapshots, data integrity, configuration checks, and reconciliation.

The speed of migration will depend on an organization’s business and technological requirements, current SAP environment, and data quality and quantity, among other considerations.

Organizations that use ProAcc to support their S/4HANA migration benefit from:

  • Swift, secure and cost-effective implementation
  • Minimal interruptions to critical business processes
  • A tailor-made approach
  • Sequentially automated processes
  • Comprehensive support

“At Promantus and Kyriba, our entire focus is to bring the highest value to corporations in the shortest possible time, and at the lowest cost,” said Johnny Daugaard, vice president of client engagement at Promantus.

Kyriba’s service-based solution includes:

  • Connectivity as a Service.
    Bolt-on bank connectivity for SAP enables organizations to connect with thousands of banks and achieve time savings in excess of 80%. Kyriba has more than 550 active, configured and tested bank solutions for plug and play ERP connectivity. It also monitors bank connection 24/7 on behalf of its clients, with connection managed in different ways including FTP, host-to-host, regional protocols and SWIFT. Kyriba is the largest SWIFT for Corporates service bureau globally, managing more than 20% of SWIFT’s corporate business. As Kyriba’s service is fully outsourced, organizations do not need to employ internal resources to support bank connectivity, which reduces their overheads.
  • Customized Payment Fraud Management.
    This solution uses detection rules, coupled with machine learning, to detect anomalies in an organization’s flow of data from its SAP system to its banks. These anomalies could be possible payment frauds.
  • Payment Format Library.
    Kyriba’s library contains over 45,000 pre-developed and bank-tested payment format scenarios, which are shared across all Kyriba clients. This saves organizations from having to develop their own payment formats for their S/4HANA platform, which can be complicated, expensive and time-consuming – especially when an organization works with a large number of banks. Kyriba simply takes a single payment file from the organization’s ERP and interprets it. It then transforms the file, based on the approved format requirements of the individual banks.
  • Global bank monitoring.
    All incoming and outcoming bank files are monitored, relieving the IT team of the burden of having to work out whether files have been processed. Effectively, an organization’s banking support is fully outsourced to Kyriba.

Conclusion 

Today, organizations are having to react with agility to the challenges posed by Covid-19. Digital transformation is key both to their present survival and their future success – and for many large organizations, this transformation will be underpinned by migration to S/4HANA. Treasury and IT should be closely involved with this migration and carefully consider solutions that enable them to meet their objectives without consuming valuable resources.

 

Recruiting a Treasurer and The First Impression – Trap

| 28-12-2020 | treasuryXL | Pieter de Kiewit

They still exist, the hiring managers who totally rely on their first impressions. “At handshake I already know if it is a good candidate”. I am no Don Quichote but will continue my battle against this statement. Not only because we are not allowed anymore to shake hands due to covid-19. This statement radiates being impolite, dumb, not showing an interest in who you work with and wasting time.

I found new inspiration in this article of recruitment guru Lou Adler.

I will let you read the whole article by yourself but elements I took is that preparing for an interview with a potential successful hire should include assessment of abilities (soft, hard and other skills), the fit (with the culture, colleagues and manager) and of course motivation (in doing the job, not landing it). He further describes that content driven interviewers (techies) tend to focus too much on abilities and the first-impression-interviewers do not control their “stupid switch”. I will not do a comprehensive analysis but want to put your attention on the following two aspects:

  • First, in my perception many in the current corporate treasury population can be described as highly skilled. They did well at university, got high grades and enjoy the analytical. The ones that have an above average impact, the ones that go up the ladder in treasury but also other functions, did well because they were a good fit. They understood colleagues and were able to get their point across. They bridged the gap between treasury and the rest of their organisation. As many hiring managers are treasury-techies, I would like to invite them to increase their attention to the fit. It could make your team so much better.
  • Second, I see bad recruitment decisions based upon the stupid switch in organisations where hiring managers do not understand the importance of treasury. Hiring managers who do not spend (a lot of) time with the person they recruit. Hiring managers who are included in the process because “somebody has to interview the candidate and has to make the decision”. I do understand that decision makers have to be included but perhaps they are better informed with CVs or assessment reports. Also there is a task for us, the treasury community, in showing how important the job should be. Spread the word!

Let me finish up with emphasizing that the interview is only one of many components of a good recruitment process. CV screening, references, assessments and a cover letter all bring information that can be the foundation of a good recruitment decision. We like to use the Treasurer Test in our recruitment. In the article Lou Adler describes not only the theory but also helps you, with practical steps, professionalising your recruitment.

Do you know people who cannot switch of the “stupid switch”?

What do you see?

I look forward to your input,

 

 

Pieter de Kiewit

Owner at Treasurer Search

 

 

 

Update Digital Finance Summit 2020

| 02-12-2020 | François de Witte | treasuryXL |

After having worked for more than 30 years in banking, François launched his own consultancy activity, FDW Consult, specialized in finance and treasury consulting. From 2014 to 2016, he was also Solution Partner Treasury & Finance at USG Professionals. Since then he took up several assignments, including one in the automotive sector with Ginion Group and with Ibanity, part of Isabel Group in the area of PSD2 and open banking. He currently is Senior Project Manager Treasury at Gaming1 (part of Ardent-Group). 

Introduction

For the 5th year, Fintech Belgium organized its annual seminar, the Digital Finance Summit, this year with as main theme “The World After”.
Due to the current sanitary situation, this year’s edition went entirely ONLINE! It was attended by over 400 persons. There were also over 230 virtual stands of exhibitors; The organization was seamless. I perceived a participant experience which was not that far away from a physical gathering.

 Some messages

 Main Stage Sessions

During the general sessions, the main message was Digital becoming the new normal. Xavier Corman, Board Member of Fintech Belgium stated: “The Covid Crisis has also brought good thing. Years worth of Digital transformation.”.

Despite the virtual exchanges, which following on the COVID19 crisis, increased dramatically, in a digital worlds, People and trust become more important. We got also interesting testimonies of banks moving to disruptive models, such as Aion (e-bank providing full set of services for a fixed subscription fee and KBC (using AI models to improve its services in the insurance).

There is a large need for digital identity, like e.g. ITSME in Belgium, but more importantly of the interoperability of the digital identity solutions. Prof Bruno Colmant • highlighted that the creation of Digital currencies represent a new paradigm and a tectonic revolution in the monetary landscape.

Evolution in the cards Landscape

Within the cards busine, the tokenization of cards is increasing, reducing the friction, whilst keeping the security.
Tokenization is the process of protecting sensitive data by replacing it with an algorithmically generated number called a token. Often times tokenization is used to prevent credit card fraud. In credit card tokenization, the customer’s primary account number (PAN) is replaced with a series of randomly generated numbers, which ares called the “token.” These tokens can then be passed through the internet needed to process the payment without actual bank details being exposed. The actual bank account or credit card number is held safe in a secure token vault.

 

Evolution in the payments world

Following a three-month public consultation, the EPC (European Payment Council) has published on 30/11/2020 the first version of the SEPA  Request-To-Pay (RTP) scheme rulebook.  The Request to Pay (RtP) is an umbrella term for several scenarios in which a payee takes the initiative to request a specific payment from the payer.

The scheme covers the set of operating rules and technical elements (including messages) that allow a Payee to request the initiation of a payment from a Payer in a wide range of physical or online use cases. The scheme can be considered as a complement to the payment flow because it supports the end-to-end process and lies between an underlying commercial transaction and the payment itself. An RTP as such can be seen as an enabler for digital payments.

The first release of the SEPA RTP scheme is scheduled to go live on 15/6/2021. The SEPA RTP scheme, combined with the SEPA Instant Credit Transfer could be a challenger for card payments, being much cheaper for the merchants. It might take some time to take off.

Conclusion

This conference was a good forum to get an insight in the Belgian FinTech market. I saw a lot of interesting initiatives and consider that Fintech will bring a lot of added value in the payments and corporate treasury landscape.

If you want to learn more on this topic, I invite you to attend the one day training session, which I animate on the topic on 16/12/2020 “PSD2 & Open banking: impact on the financial ecosystem and new challenges”

 

François de Witte
Founder & Senior Consultant at FDW Consult
Managing Director and CFO at SafeTrade Holding S.A.
treasuryXL ambassador

Digital Finance Summit | The World After | 24 November 2020

| 20-11-2020 | François de Witte | treasuryXL |

Only 4 days left for the Digital Finance Summit, the highly renowned conference focusing on the ever-increasing digitalisation of the financial industry, is back again this year to set the path for a bright and more dynamic future at the heart of Europe.

Digital Finance Summit is at the crossroads between Tech Talent, Regtech, Cloud Computing, Big Data, Blockchain, Crypto-assets, Artificial Intelligence, Crowdfunding, Cybersecurity and Banking. It gathers global innovators looking to get inspired by a unique blend of industry leaders and turboboost the whole European FinTech ecosystem!

ONLINE EVENT | NOVEMBER 24 | 2020

Due to the current sanitary situation, this year’s edition goes entirely ONLINE!

For the 5th year in a row, FinTech Belgium is preparing a creative programme spread over 3 stages with Keynotes, Workshops and the European FinTech Pitch Battle!  And, of course, be prepared for the most qualitative networking in Digital Finance in Belgium!

REGISTER NOW!

 

 

 

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!

 

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.

 

Kyriba Webinar: Modernising Global Corporate Payments to Prevent Fraud

04-11-2020 | treasuryXL | Kyriba |

These last few months have highlighted that Payments Fraud continues to be a major problem, with fraudsters quick to leverage the global pandemic, with the amounts involved considerable.

In this session Kyriba’s Paul Simpson will be joined by Helen Alexander from SWIFT and James Bushby from MasterCard, to explain what institutional payment fraud is, with a specific focus on the technology and processes that treasury and finance teams can employ to minimise risk.

In particular, the agenda will follow:

  • What institutional payment fraud is and the internal processes and technology to consider, with SWIFT
  • How a payment hub mitigates against Fraud for Corporates, with Kyriba
  • Introduction to how MasterCard is helping fight Financial Crime

Register your place by filling in the form to your right and we will be in touch!

Date:

November 12th, 09:30- 10:30 (CET)

Contact:

Partner Interview Series | The deeper dive with Treasury Intelligence Solutions (TIS)

03-11-2020 | treasuryXL | TIS |

2020 is a special year in so many ways. For our partner TIS it has been a great year with an expansion of the BENELUX team and a realisation of a double digit growth.

In this interview we will take the deeper dive with TIS Benelux. What have been the greatest successes in the BENELUX? What are the biggest changes in this market? How do you see the future of corporate payments?

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.

AN INTRODUCTION TO

Meet Aderito Duarte, Sales Executive at TIS and responsible for new business in the BENELUX region.

Aderito has spent over 10 years in the SaaS industry working for different vendors in various sales (leadership) roles, both in local and international markets. He is an ambitious sales professional with a record of over-achievement and demonstrated success in a highly competitive market.

He has a strong background in new business sales and relationship building. Performance, development and contribution are the key words that drive his career and enable him to mobilize the team, partners, clients and prospects.

We asked him 7 questions. Let’s go!

INTERVIEW

1. What is your background and why did you decide to join TIS (Treasury Intelligence Solutions)?

For very long time I worked as a sales executive for large organizations like ADP, Oracle and SAP.  Then I decided it was time for something different, something more agile and more entrepreneurial. At TIS I can act as a true entrepreneur and always put my customers first. I contribute to my customers’ success while having fun and developing myself together with other colleagues from the Benelux Team. I cannot wish for more.

2. Tell us briefly about TIS, its solution and the most important benefits for your customers.

TIS was founded in 2010 in Walldorf, Germany. Its core offering is a cloud-based Software-as-a-Service platform for corporate payments and cash management. Currently there are about 180 colleagues working from six offices globally including Germany, Bulgaria, the Netherlands, and USA. 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. Working with TIS allows customers to significantly reduce cost and manual effort in their payment processes. The risk of manual errors can be mitigated, and treasury teams are freed up to direct their attention to more strategic and value-adding tasks. The TIS platform creates an end-to-end payment experience by connecting to virtually any ERP system and any bank with an extensive payment format library. Instead of a plethora of different E-banking tools, all payments can be made securely through one platform, anytime, anywhere. With such consolidation of payments and accounts information, the clients can have a centralized overview of real-time cash visibility.

3. What have been your greatest successes in BENELUX?

Looking at 2020, a year full of challenges for us all, I am very proud that we will realize double digit growth.  Next to that we are building a diverse team with different competences and skills to serve our customers’ needs. Another important aspect to the TIS Benelux success is the strong partner community we are building to support our customers in the region. For example, recently we formed a new partnership with Cashforce and extended our partnership with Orchard Finance.  Above all these achievements, the feedback we receive from customers in the Benelux explains why we received the 2019 TMI award for outstanding customer experience. For example, Simon Karregat, Group Treasurer at Fugro NV says: “With TIS, we have a central overview of worldwide payments, and now just use one platform instead of different banking tools. This enables us to embed our payment transactions within our ERP landscape and realize straight-through processing.” It is always our top priority to generate true business value for our clients.

4. What in your opinion are some of the biggest changes in this market in BENELUX?

Recently we have received many questions from both Treasurers and IT professionals concerning the digitalization or streamlining of the corporate payment process in the big context of the S/4HANA migration. When it comes to SAP (ECC) ERP migration to SAP S/4HANA, there have been a lot of initiatives in the organizations to guarantee a smooth and on-schedule move. The area of corporate payments is a critical part in this migration due to its impact on the group-wide business continuity. It is important to understand customers current needs and determine the appropriate S/4HANA migration scenarios. For that, TIS has published a Whitepaper to help our customers understand the complexity of such migration and the importance of choosing specialist vendors such as TIS in order to maximize the win with SAP S/4HANA.

Another trend we see is, people are working more from home and need the right tools to manage payments, location independently, which potentially increases the risk of fraud. Our view is that payment security is a much broader topic than just payment fraud. Therefore, payment fraud prevention or detection can only be a meaningful exercise when it is an integral part of a company’s overall payment security strategy. While it is not necessary to centralize all the actual payments’ process to prevent fraud, it is key to bring all functions and information together using a single payments’ gateway. Here you can read more how the TIS platform supports our customers to protect their organizations from payment fraud.

5. The world is changing rapidly especially in financial services, how does TIS stay one step ahead of its competitors?

Our solutions are based on a deep understanding of the market, the customer’s needs and our continuously updated vision for the future. Ten years ago, when TIS was founded, there was almost no bank-agnostic payments platform that allowed Treasurers to manage all accounts, transactions, and balances from one platform. Treasurers lacked transparency and cash visibility to make informed decisions. In-house solutions were expensive and time-consuming to develop. Joerg Wiemer, co-founder and Chief Strategy Officer of TIS, was then the SVP and Head of Global Treasury at SAP. He knew the problem inside and out because he was living that problem every day. When the company was founded, the market was still skeptical about using a cloud solution for payments. However, Joerg and Erol Bozak (cofounder and Chief Product Officer of TIS) believed that cloud was the answer to corporate payments and cash management with its high scalability, fast roll-out and a centralized overview regardless of the complexity of a company’s payments landscape. As many treasury teams all over the world are working from home nowadays, a cloud-based payments platform has been proven to be a blessing to our customers who have confirmed to us that they did not have to make significant changes to their payments processes. Meanwhile TIS continuously grows its payment format library, connects to more banks worldwide, and invests heavily in adding meaningful innovations to the platform.

6. In 5 years from now, how will TIS look like?

In 2019 and 2020, two years in a row TIS has been named by the Financial Times as one of Europe’s fastest growing companies. In 2019, the total payment transaction volume of the company was more than that of PayPal. We believe that the demand for agile, flexible and scalable cloud-based payments platform will only grow. This year May, TIS received $20 million additional funding from renowned technology venture funds. We are planning to use this funding to accelerate product development and to further scale operations in Europe and in the US, in order to meet growing international demand. It is hard to predict the future, but I would say in five years from now, TIS will grow its footprint in more regions and it will play a much bigger role in the ecosystem beyond corporate payments.

7. What is TIS’ vision for the future of corporate payments?

Rather than one-stop finance solutions, the future of corporate payments lies in Best-of-Breed solutions. We can observe this trend in the consumer market, where consumers expect to pick and choose from solutions that best meet their needs. In corporate payments, this is still a fairly new concept, however, one with great promise. Corporates get the best products and services in the market that are enabled through APIs, most importantly, that fit best to their specific corporate needs. This new Best-of-Breed ecosystem will also allow corporates to share data more easily with their business partners, helping them achieve better information sharing and service offering.

If you want to learn how TIS can help you gain cash visibility and full control over your payments, please reach out to me via [email protected] or request a demo at www.tis.biz/en.