Tag Archive for: treasury

PGO Treasury and Corporate Finance (RT) @ Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam

| 14-08-2018 | VU Amsterdam | treasuryXL |

PGO Treasury and Corporate Finance (RT) will start shortly – only a few places left

In previous blogs we informed you about the post graduate education treasury at the Vrije Universiteit in Amsterdam. This will be the first year that the program will be in English. As in previous years, a nice mix of treasury experts with different professional backgrounds will start in September. The VU informed us only a few places are left.

In this link you can read more about the program and see a short youtube posting about corporate treasury.

Best read articles of all time: Treasurer en controller; een paar apart ?

| 10-08-2018 | Jan de Kroon | treasuryXL |

collaboration-1106196_640De treasurer en de controller zouden twee handen op dezelfde buik moeten zijn, maar de vraag is of dat in alle, of zelfs de meeste, gevallen wel zo is. Enkele uitzonderingen daargelaten, zijn de verschillen groter dan de overeenkomsten.

Kort door de bocht zou je kunnen stellen dat de treasurer zich met het financieren van de operatie bezig houdt aan de passiefzijde van de balans. De controller houdt zich dan bezig met vooral de operatie waarvoor die middelen aan de actiefzijde zijn aangewend en zorgt ervoor dat die cash ook weer beschikbaar komt voor de verschaffer van die middelen. Beiden spelen een belangrijke rol in de cash conversion cycle en als het goed is, stemmen ze hun belangen onderling goed af. De praktijk leert echter dat het in veel gevallen niet zo rooskleurig verloopt in de afstemming.

De treasury functie onderhoudt een brug tussen de financiële belangen van de eigen organisatie en ontwikkelingen op de financiële markten er buiten. Hij zorgt voor blijvende toegang tot bronnen van geld, beschermt vermogen en resultaat tegen financiële risico’s en beheert een superieure en kosten-efficiënte financiële infrastructuur. Daar is weinig op tegen te hebben; voorwaar een nuttige rol die op begrip van iedereen kan rekenen. Althans, dat zou je denken.

Toch gaat het in de relatie vaak verre van soepel. Meestal omdat ze niet alleen een andere taal spreken, maar ook elkaars wereld niet echt lijken te kennen; laat staan echt begrijpen. De treasurer heeft een groot belang bij juiste, tijdige en volledige positie informatie en verwacht die van de controller te ontvangen. Zich niet realiserend dat de controller het belang vast wel onderschrijft maar in zijn eigen business unit met een vergelijkbaar vraagstuk worstelt; hoe krijg ik in des hemelsnaam tijdig betrouwbare informatie uit de lijn en het primaire proces. Voor eigen gebruik in het veld, maar ook om een collega op het hoofdkantoor een plezier mee te doen.

Anders dan de gemiddelde treasurer is echter de controller een vogeltje dat minder goed gebekt is en mede daardoor niet altijd lijneenheden kan overtuigen van nut en noodzaak van tijdige prognoses op basis waarvan de treasurer zijn randvoorwaarden beter kan inregelen. Om dat op te lossen en betere positie-informatie te verkrijgen uit de operatie, is een aantal elementen van belang:

1. Zorg er voor dat treasurer en controller elkaar beter leren begrijpen. Dat kan door meer in te spelen op business partnership dan ‘leverancier-afnemer’;

2. Zorg voor een beter financieel economisch bewustzijn bij de lijn. Dat kan door bijvoorbeeld het hanteren van feedback en feed forward technieken maar ook door het benoemen van lokale treasury referenten in het primaire proces;

3. Zorg dat de verantwoordelijkheden scherp zijn gedefinieerd. Daarmee zorg je dat tenminste iemand zich verantwoordelijk voelt voor de juiste positie op het juiste moment;

4. Een periodieke treasury nieuwsbrief kan helpen bij het vermijden van ‘ver-van-het-bed-shows’ en het verkleinen van de communicatie-kloof.

Zo komen de handen weer op één buik.

Jan de Kroon

 

Jan de Kroon

Owner & Managing partner of Improfin Groep

 

Best read articles of all time: Do treasurers really need instant payments? some implications.

| 03-08-2018 | Patrick Kunz | treasuryXL

 

 

Per 13 January 2018 we have a new payments service directive (nr. 2) live in the European union, PSD2 for short. One part of PSD2 is the possibility for banks to offer instant payments between banks in the EU. Within max 10 seconds money flows from one bank to the other, also on weekends and on holidays. In this paper I want to discuss the implications for treasurers of instant payments.

Cash flow forecasting

Forecasting is an important part of the daily/weekly routine of a treasurer. He/she needs to predict the future to know his cash/risk/financing position. On the ultra-short term spectrum of this forecast a treasurer might use intraday bank statement (MT942) to take into account the incoming funds during the day. These are often updated hourly. With instant payments a treasurer can have a look at their bank account and the balance that is showing is the real-time balance with all incoming transactions being settled. As said before a treasurer might already have intraday statements but there is (1) a time lag in those and (2) there might be transactions not processed yet. Bottom line this difference amounts to several hours lag. Depending on the size of the company and the amount and size of transactions there is some impact but not very sizeable. Furthermore, those treasurers that do not use intraday balances for their forecasting have no impact of instant payments. However, how about the due payments on non-working days? In the future these are normal payments dates. Previously due payments on weekends are either set on Friday or Monday depending on the terms of the contract. These could now be forecasted on the exact day. But that depends, payments are often done during business hours, so it is possible that nothing changes. Depending on the size of the transactions there is importance to check this with your suppliers and clients. This also depends on bank processing of yourself and your client/supplier.

Bank processing

Instant means instant in time but also in days. In the past we were dependent on the opening hours of the banks and later of the ECB. That could mean that if we send money just after close on Friday and there was a public holiday on Monday we would only see the money coming in on Tuesday. The money was “lost in translation” in between. This is not very modern in an age where we send an email from Tokyo to South Africa in minutes but not money. We could literally fly there with cash and be faster. After all banks have implemented PSD2 money flows 24/7. So also in the weekend and on holidays. This has an impact on the processing of your bank statement. You now receive bank statement for Saturday and Sunday. Most accounting/treasury departments do not work on the weekends so there is a chance that these statements are not processed. This means you must process 3 statements on Monday. Some companies have automatic processing of bank statements, so the weekend statements might be processed but not (automatically) consolidated leading to more open positions on Monday. Ok big deal, there is more work to do on Monday due to more bank statements. But there is more: not necessarily for treasury departments. Think about customer services (helpdesk) departments. If a client with an overdue payment calls it would be great if the helpdesk employee is able to verify statements of the customers if the says he has paid or will pay immediately. This however only works if processing is automatic or if the helpdesk employee can access/search the incoming payments on the bank account (which might not have processed in accounting). Not all companies will have this yet. Overdue calculations might be faulty in some ERP systems as only working days are considered. If a payment is due on Sunday, you can pay on this Sunday and not necessarily on the Friday before.

Conclusion

Instant payments are only a fraction of PSD2 which is often not very interesting for most treasurers. They get some information faster but that does not really help them too much. There is however more to it. Since payments can now arrive and be made in the weekends the cash flow forecasting should now contain 7 days in a week instead of 5. Payment can be spread out more but also receipts will be. Bank processing is more work; 7 daily statements per bank account per week instead of 5. Extra processing or extra automation needed. The extra information might be needed by other departments too even though the treasury/accounting department is not working.

Overall the implications could be bigger then you might think and are different for every company and depending on their existing (bank) processing.
Most bank are planning to introduce weekend reporting by H2 2018 while instant payments are due beginning 2019. For business transactions this might even take until H2 2019.

Some time left but a good time to already think about your current processes in comparison to the new reality under psd2. Treasury is moving to a 24/7 information economy. It’s about time.Time will tell if there will be fintech’s stepping in helping with above issues with direct connections to the bank, which is another important part of PSD2 but not within the scope of this article.

If you need help with automating your bank statement processing or with your cash flow forecasting, then look at this author and other Flex Treasurers on this website for answers.

Patrick Kunz

Treasury, Finance & Risk Consultant/ Owner Pecunia Treasury & Finance BV

 

 

EVENT: THE WORLD’S LEADING INTERNATIONAL TREASURY EVENT @ EUROFINANCE

| 31-07-2018 | Eurofinance | treasuryXL |

Join the global treasury community at EuroFinance’s  27th International Treasury Management conference. This year, we look at how to prepare treasury for the future – because it is no longer enough to just deliver on treasury’s core responsibilities.

New technology, business model disruption and unprecedented compliance, regulation and geopolitical issues will change the profession beyond recognition. Treasury needs to react and adapt.

  • Discover which tech is relevant to you and how to future-proof your treasury
  • Hear how to be proactive, work with the rest of the business and keep treasury relevant
  • Learn how others are seizing the opportunity to review everything from staffing to structures

This fresh new programme is based on over 1,000 interviews and discussions with treasury professionals around the world. It will deliver cutting-edge content, real-life case studies and thought provoking big picture sessions.

Network with an unparalleled senior audience of 2100+ delegates from over 50 countries. Find out what to expect here: https://bit.ly/2Nv8RI3

For more information or if you want to register for the event visit the events website.

 

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Corda Enterprise blockchain platform: unlocking new opportunities

| 30-07-2018 | Carlo de Meijer | treasuryXL

Early this month R3 announced the launch of Corda Enterprise, a commercial version of its open-source Corda blockchain platform, which aims to help a wider range of business use blockchain in their sector. With the launch of Corda Enterprise, companies can now select a version of Corda that fits their unique needs – regardless of their industry, size and stage of development. It however took more than a year hard working, because of the various challenges, such as scale, security and privacy.

Corda Enterprise brings greater enterprise capabilities to the Corda platform. Built upon the existing Corda’s functionality, it is thereby enhancing availability and performance. These extra features may enhance security and make Corda Enterprise easier to scale. Next to the We.Trade platform for trade finance (see my recent blog: We.Trade on blockchain: yes we can), Corda Enterprise is the second commercially available blockchain platform for business, specifically optimised to “meet the demands of modern day businesses”, especially complex regulated institutions.

Why Corda Enterprise?

The whole idea of the original Corda platform (see my blog: R3CEV Corda Platform: the blockchain app store, 9 October 2017) was to enable businesses to transact directly and privately, reducing transaction costs and streamlining operations. Many large users however are facing technical, regulatory and compliance issues that prevent them from using blockchain internally at scale. Not all businesses can realise the full potential of blockchain because of technical constraints like their existing IT systems and complex infrastructures, as well as issues around privacy, scalability and interoperability between systems. R3 is therefore launching Corda Enterprise and has implemented additional functionalities so that every business can benefit.

 

Read the full article of our expert Carlo de Meijer on LinkedIn

 

Carlo de Meijer

Economist and researcher

 

Best read articles of all time: Financieringsstructuur: solide fundament of kaartenhuis?

| 25-07-2018 | Bianca van Zeventer | treasuryXL

Leningen worden vaak gezien als een goede manier om lange termijn investeringen te financieren. Een (gecommitteerde) meerjarige lening levert veelal zekerheid voor de middellange termijn. “Voor meerdere jaren vastgelegd” blijkt in de praktijk vaak niet waar te zijn. Leningen worden afgesloten als een aanvullende vorm van financieren, naast rekening courant, lease en/of andere leningen. Hoewel het aangaan van de meerjarige financiering ‘an sich’ niet heel risicovol hoeft te zijn, zijn de voorwaarden dit soms wel.

Elke vorm van financiering heeft zijn eigen voorwaarden. Aan de verschillende leningen worden specifieke voorwaarden toegevoegd. En dan zijn er nog de algemene (bank)voorwaarden.
Veel bedrijven nemen onterecht aan dat dit ‘standaardvoorwaarden’ zijn en er maar beperkte onderhandelingsruimte is.

De voorwaarden van de verschillende arrangementen spreken elkaar vaak tegen, zijn niet zoals beoogd en/of dienen niet het doel en het belang de onderneming.

Financiering in welke vorm dan ook blijkt vaak een kaartenhuis. In plaats van mooi gestapeld, zijn de arrangementen een domino met de eerste steen in handen van de kredietverlener.

Wanneer uw onderneming onverhoopt in zwaarder weer terecht komt, dan is het belangrijk dat het staat op een solide financieel fundament.
Voorkomen is beter dan genezen geldt hier ook. Beter vooral goed uit-onderhandeld dan later de financiering amenderen of herstructureren. Of zelfs geen keuze meer hebben. Uw bank of financier eenzijdig de mogelijkheid geven alle financieringen te herroepen of betaalbaar te stellen, biedt geen financiële stabiliteit.

Maar vaak blijken de verschillende voorwaarden zodanig in elk kaar te grijpen, dat dit wel het geval is.

Een FlexTreasurer met gespecialiseerde financieringskennis, kan u helpen een snelle scan te maken van uw financieringsstructuur, aanbevelingen doen voor aanpassingen en/of financieringsarrangementen namens u of samen met u (her)onderhandelen.

 

Bianca van Zeventer

Treasury and Finance Specialist / Owner of CuCoFin

 

The link between financial performance and working capital metrics

| 10-07-2018 | Theo Paardekooper | treasuryXL

Managing working capital is an important task for treasurers in order to reduce the financial risk of a company and to improve the financial stability. In various studies the costs and benefits of working capital have been claimed.

According to Blinder and Maccini (1991), supply costs and price fluctuations can be reduced by larger inventories and this can prevent loss of business due to scarcity of products. However, there are also effects of investment in working capital, which may lead to a negative impact on firm value. Firstly, keeping stock available imposes costs such as warehouse rent, insurance and security expenses, which tend to rise as the level of inventory increases (Kim & Chung, 1990). Secondly, larger investments in working capital, involves opportunity costs and financing costs (Kieschnick, Laplante, & Moussawi (2013) and this will increase credit risk. Summarizing, working capital management affects the perational performance of the company and external circumstances can influence working capital management accordingly. The corporate treasurer is the key person to create working capital policies and initiate managerial focus on this topic. In order to define the added value of a treasurer in the perspective of working capital management the main question is:

Is there a link between the financial performance of a company and its working capital metrics?

This question can be mathematically rephrased as

Where the working capital metrics are defined in the Cash Conversion Cycle (CCC)

Several studies conclude that a faster rise in the cost of higher investment in working capital relative to the holding of more inventories and or granting trade credit to customers may lead to a decrease in corporate profitability (Deloof 2003) and Shin and Soenen (1998) find in a comprehensive study a strong negative relationship between working capital metrics and corporate profitability for US corporates. Most studies focuses on the linear relationship between financial performance and working capital metrics, however a non-linear relationship between financial performance and working capital metrics is at stake. On top of the non-linear relationship industry specific effects might play an important role. After investigating the statistics of a database containing the financial information of 39.052 non-US listed corporates in a time period between 2010 and 2017 2 samples of scatter charts below give a view on the data

  • The results indicate that in 50% of the industries a relationship between financial performance and working capital metrics is confirmed, and this relationship is non- linear. A certain optimum for financial performance is at stake.

  • The cash conversion cycle is industry driven as we see a wide range of different cash conversion cycles over various industries.
  • Working capital management can improve the financial performance, however based on the data, we see a lot of different results in the working capital metric compared to financial performance. This can indicate there is room for more focus on working capital management

 

Theo Paardekooper

Independent treasury specialist

 

Wat zijn de mogelijkheden van een Flex Treasurer binnen het MKB?

09-07-2018 | treasuryXL |

Laagdrempelige en hoogwaardige expertise van ZZP’ers uit de treasury wereld voor kleine en middelgrote organisaties die geen treasurer of cash manager in dienst hebben.

WAT IS EEN FLEX TREASURER?

U bent de eigenaar van of werkt in een kleine of middelgrote organisatie die geen treasurer of cash manager in dienst heeft. U denkt waarschijnlijk dat er binnen uw organisatie geen plaats is voor een dergelijke functie. Maar, oordeel niet te snel: ook het MKB heeft behoefte aan professionals als het gaat om treasury en cash management. Toch gaat het aannemen van iemand vaak een stap te ver.

Welke mogelijkheden zijn er?

treasuryXL en Treasurer Search hebben de handen ineengeslagen om laagdrempelige en hoogwaardige expertise van ZZP’ers uit de treasury wereld te koppelen aan kleine en middelgrote ondernemingen die geen treasurer of cash manager in dienst hebben.

We willen met deze dienstverlening geen substituut worden voor de grote treasury consultancy organisaties maar we bieden graag ondersteuning bij vraagstukken die nu onbeantwoord blijven. U kunt de vraag aan ons stellen en wij zullen u vrijblijvend in contact brengen met de juiste deskundige. Leidt dit tot een samenwerking, dan kan dit op urenbasis, als lump sum of in een abonnementsvorm ingevuld worden.

Beschikbare diensten

Wij kennen Flex Treasurers uit verschillende vakgebieden: risk, bankrelaties & technologie, regulations, non-profit, financiering, trade finance, cash management, SME & overige gebieden.

Meer informatie kunt u terugvinden op onze website. Hier kunt u bijvoorbeeld een overzicht van de diensten vinden die we aanbieden in samenwerking met de Flex Treasurers zoals bijvoorbeeld een treasury  quickscan en een treasury coach.

 

Best read articles of all time – This is why corporate treasury is great – The laymen introduction to corporate treasury

| 26-06-2018 | by Pieter de Kiewit |

My father was a civil engineer and would have liked one of his kids to follow in his footsteps. Regretfully for him we all went in different directions, me landing an engineering degree of the wrong type. What I did like to learn from my first business management professor was about creating bridges between various functional areas. That is what I have been doing as a recruiter for almost 25 years, the last 8 solely in corporate treasury. Why treasury?

All organisations, even the small ones, can benefit from good treasury. Only the bigger ones hired permanent experts. The main three areas, perhaps oversimplified, they focus on are:

  1. Money logistics: opening and closing bank accounts, doing (bulk) payments, forecast money coming in and going out;
  2. Managing (treasury) risk: understand and manage the implications of interest or currency fluctuations. If your manufacturing costs are in Euro and you sell in Dollars and the price of the Dollar drops, what to do? What to do if you have excess cash on your current account;
  3. Funding: where do you get your money for new or current business? Bank loans, equity, mortgage, leasing?

This does not sound sexy, does it? But do understand that during the crisis treasurers found solutions for companies how to survive. They found funding to pay salaries, helped sales finding creative funding solutions to make complex transactions achievable, helped prevent companies going belly-up due to currency exposures, forced banks to offer better solutions at a more acceptable price.

Treasurers manage huge amounts of money and operate very close to the CFO. They are involved in mergers & acquisitions, reorganisations and international expansion. They act in small numbers but have huge impact if they would stop doing their work. And the job type evolves continuously. Creating new treasury bridges to traditional job types like accounting, tax, sales helps all doing a better job. The academic world is showing increasing interest. In the Netherlands the post graduate education at the Vrije Universiteit is becoming more prominent in the treasury community. Corporate treasury is very dynamic!

What I love doing is helping CFO’s, HR, internal recruitment and senior treasury managers with their staffing questions. What qualifications and personality type matches best with your current and future business situation. If you only hire one treasurer per year, what do you need to know to choose the best candidate? I hope now you can understand my passion for creating bridges in treasury and recruitment.

I look forward to your thoughts to the above and further contact,

Pieter de Kiewit
[email protected] / +31 6 1111 9783

Pieter de Kiewit

 

 

Pieter de Kiewit
Owner Treasurer Search

 

Best read articles of all time – Corporate Governance – It is all about the rules

| 20-06-2018 | treasuryXL |

Corporate governance is the rules and processes by which a company is controlled and directed. It is a balancing mechanism between different stakeholders – directors, shareholders, management, government, external financiers etc. The treasury function performs highly skilled and complex tasks to ensure continued and harmonious execution of all cash related functions. At the same time, there is much interaction with both internal and external stakeholders. The corporate governance within the treasury function should always be performed in accordance with predetermined and approved metrics as laid out in Treasury statutes. This means undertaking operations that are consistent with the governance within the corporation.

Corporate governance helps to define the strategies of a company, and highlight how these strategies will be implemented throughout the policies, procedures and working processes. Normally, Treasury statutes are drawn up by treasury and management – detailing the accepted methodology to perform the approved tasks – whilst responsibility and approval is granted by the directors. Once agreed upon, the statutes have to be observed by staff carrying out their duties and responsibilities.

As the treasury function is highly complex – both in financial products as well as regulatory frameworks – both directors and management need to fully comprehend the functionality as well as the implications of different financial products and services. The onus lies on the treasury department to ensure that other stakeholders not only have enough knowledge about the products, but also awareness and understanding of the relevant risks. This is vital to ensure that the right decisions are made at the highest strategic level.

Directors and management need to understand:

  • Financial risks undertaken whilst running the business on a day-to-day basis
    Operational controls to protect the business from fraud
    Risks inherent in approved financial instruments
    Strategies used to identify and mitigate financial risk
    How risk is measured and reported
    Potential exposure as a result of the agreed policy
    Acceptance that not all risks can be qualified and quantified
    The influence of external factors – market risk, counterparty risk, interest rate risk etc.

Proactive role of the Treasury

  • Accurate valuation of financial products used – if you cannot value it, you should not be using it
    Quick recording of all transactions
    Ensuring with controllers that all financial products are correctly input for accounting purposes
    Implementation and management of agreed Treasury policies
    Determining if bank covenants are being maintained
    Ensure compliance with all external regulatory frameworks
    Collaborating with auditors – both internal and external

Policy is influenced by strategy and objectives. The role of Treasury is to help to fulfil those objectives. Treasury has a dual function – it both mitigates risk as well as being the source of risk. Treasury enters into financial transactions on behalf of the business in order to mitigate risks; however, something like an unauthorised trade could subject the business to financial loss.

It is essential that directors and management understand both the risks that treasury manage, together with the potential risks that those transactions can create.