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5 Post-Pandemic Trends Corporate Treasurers Should Pay Attention To
26-07-2021 | treasuryXL | Gtreasury |
Corporate treasurers have manned a vital lookout position for their enterprises throughout the pandemic, navigating oft-tumultuous and unpredictable economic shifts. As businesses now inch closer to more normal operations, expect treasury to continue to fulfill a role of heightened intra-organizational visibility while adapting to new realities for what’s required from their job.
Here are the five trends treasurers can expect to play out in 2021, as a post-pandemic world appears closer across the horizon:
Treasury must continue to deliver accurate cash visibility and forecasting.
For many businesses hit hard, a waning pandemic will – hopefully – bring sales and production back to pre-pandemic levels. Organizations will continue to require frequent and accurate-as-possible cash forecasting to guide effective decision-making throughout this period of recovery. Treasury teams may continue to be called upon to deliver forecasts as often as weekly or daily; even as conditions stabilize, I think it’s unlikely that quarterly (or monthly) forecasts will be the norm. To facilitate this increased frequency, treasurers will increasingly pursue appropriate technologies fit for rapid-fire forecasting, particularly in the area of AI-based tools.
By and large, treasurers surveyed from the pandemic’s onset proved quite accurate in foreseeing a drawn-out pandemic recovery timetable – and the lingering impacts that have indeed since occurred. The data shows they’ve also proven effective in leading their companies to make strategic preparations accordingly. Those deft approaches ought to continue through the end of the pandemic while undergoing iterations to adapt to changing circumstances as necessary. In many ways, the outcome each company can expect is rooted in the capabilities and foundation for success that treasury teams have already implemented.
If treasurers aren’t yet equipped with the automation and treasury management systems necessary to match their cash reporting workloads, their organizations will be more vulnerable to shifting circumstances. Corporate treasurers in this position face compounding limitations: spending all available bandwidth on completing manual cash reporting processes leave no resources to implement new automation. To avoid or escape this cycle, treasurers should work with software and service providers to rapidly realize the automation they require.
Treasury must become more efficient.
Many treasury teams have become leaner over the course of the pandemic. At the same time, the cash forecasting and risk assessment that treasury provides has been crucial for enabling companies to maintain vital liquidity. That function will remain essential throughout the pandemic’s aftermath.
To accomplish more with less, treasury teams should pursue solutions that increase their efficiency via broader automation and smoother integrations. The pandemic has also driven the shift to distributed workplaces, which will persist going forward. Facilitating efficient distributed workforces will require treasury systems to be able to deliver continuous remote access to information, seamlessly and in real-time. Treasury teams that have digital automation projects in development ought to expedite those efforts now, and then release new features in stages where possible. The value of optimized processes and automation cannot be understated for corporate treasury in the post-pandemic environment.
As the pandemic subsides, merger and acquisition activity will rise.
Enterprises will have low-cost access to cash and equity as the pandemic wanes, which many will tap to pursue mergers and acquisitions. Treasurers will conduct the critical work of assessing the cash positions and risk profiles of potential merger partners and acquisition targets while ensuring the necessary liquidity to complete these transactions.
Treasurers must prioritize preparedness for benchmark rate reform.
LIBOR continues to be a moving target but is due to be replaced with new benchmark rates after 2021. Corporate treasurers are well-advised to prepare for this transition sooner than later, realigning all standing loans and contracts to the new rates. Those companies that aren’t yet on pace for a smooth transition will need to accelerate their work in this area.
Well before the deadline, treasurers should review all loans, credit, and investments tied to LIBOR, and arrange replacement rates and fallback provisions with lenders and servicers. Similarly, all new contracts will need to include appropriate fallback provisions. The new benchmark rates will also require treasurers to train and become experts in their new operating environment.
Singular platforms able to seamlessly integrate data and technologies across treasury ecosystems will be all the more valuable.
Treasury and risk management systems able to integrate cash, payments, risk, fraud, ERP, BI, and additional capabilities on a single platform are crucial to eliminating friction in payments and data workflows. Treasurers can discover vast benefits by using systems that unite the universe of fintech solutions they rely upon. Treasurers should vet and select solution ecosystems able to automate bank transfers, deliver simplified connectivity to banks and accounts across the globe, and transfer information along with payments. Those able to drive accurate decision-making, ease new feature implementation, improve treasurers’ user experiences, and provide strategic enhancements also deserve treasurers’ attention. The right technology strategy will open the door for treasurers to far more easily introduce valuable new capabilities and efficiencies.
Make no mistake about it: for corporate treasurers and the systems and processes they oversee, the aftermath of the pandemic necessitates maintaining vigilance and continuing to optimize practices.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Michele Marvin
Global VP, GTreasury
Michele Marvin is a VP at GTreasury, a treasury and risk management platform provider. Prior to joining GTreasury in 2019, Marvin has held leadership roles at several large technology companies, including most recently at Flexera and Zebra Technologies.
#3 Sole focus on Exchange Rates (Dutch item)
22-07-2021 | XE |
Companies that need a currency service, either for their daily transactions or for a more strategic planning for the future, will logically first go to the exchange rates offered. Why wouldn’t you choose the provider that offers the best possible rates for your money to begin with?
Het antwoord op die vraag is dat de koers weliswaar belangrijk is, maar niet de enige factor is die van invloed is op de blootstelling van uw bedrijf aan valutarisico’s. Bedrijven die alleen maar gefocust zijn op het volgen van de koersen, kunnen bovendien het grotere plaatje missen.
Als iets te goed lijkt om waar te zijn, dan is het dat meestal ook. Met andere woorden: als u een uitstekende koers krijgt aangeboden door een provider, is er dan iets anders wat u niet krijgt? Dat kan het serviceniveau zijn dat uw bedrijf nodig heeft, of de juiste ondersteuning. Hoe snel reageert uw provider bijvoorbeeld als een betaling fout loopt?
“Bedrijven die alleen maar gefocust zijn op het volgen van de koersen, kunnen het grotere plaatje missen.”
Het is ook belangrijk om te begrijpen dat koersvergelijkingen misleidend kunnen zijn. Valutamarkten zijn zo bewegelijk, dat u de koersen van een specifiek moment moet nemen om een correcte vergelijking te kunnen maken. Een provider die nu aantrekkelijk lijkt vergeleken met de koers die een van zijn concurrenten twee uur geleden bood, is misschien helemaal niet zo aantrekkelijk. Het is zeker zinvol om rond te kijken. Veel bedrijven accepteren de matige standaardservices van hun valutaprovider omdat ze nooit naar alternatieven hebben gekeken. Maar doe dat rondkijken op basis van waarde in plaats van prijs. Wat hebt u behalve concurrerende koersen nog meer nodig van uw valutaprovider? Zijn de aangeboden koersen open en transparant, zodat u altijd precies weet hoeveel u betaalt, na aftrek van kosten?
In de praktijk bieden valutaproviders een verscheidenheid aan meerwaarde. Misschien hebt u een online service nodig die is afgestemd op de specifieke eisen van uw bedrijf, met autorisatie van verschillende mensen voor verschillende soorten transacties. Misschien hebt u de snelst mogelijke service nodig zodat u langere betalingstermijnen hebt. Verder kunnen valutaproviders de valutamarkten voor u in de gaten houden. Als uw bedrijf zijn valutatransacties zo probeert te timen dat u de best mogelijke koers krijgt, ga dan op zoek naar een provider die koersmeldingen of marktorders biedt. Dan ontvangt u een melding wanneer de koers een bepaald niveau bereikt of wordt uw transactie automatisch verwerkt tegen die prijs.
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The Art of Selecting Suitable Treasury Technology
| 21-07-2021 | treasuryXL | Nomentia |
Many Corporate Treasury functions are aware of the importance of utilizing technology to deliver improved efficiency and control in their treasury operations. This is being driven by the increasing pace of regulatory change, continuously evolving business models, volatile economic conditions, and fast-growing technological developments. Also, treasurers are recognizing the benefits of a strategically focused ‘smart treasury’ – one that utilizes the latest technology to be more integrated, automated, and optimized; adding value to the business.
However, as the treasury technology landscape continues to evolve at a rapid pace, many organizations find it difficult to successfully adopt this technology, either because their entry point is not clear or because they had previously made the leap and are now struggling to keep pace with the evolution. There are a multitude of options and considerations for those looking for the right solutions, which are important to understand before deciding on what is right for an organization.
We have outlined below some key insights and considerations when selecting suitable technology solutions.
Develop a treasury technology roadmap
Your roadmap should consider essential functional requirements that must be satisfied immediately – current hot topics include improved cash visibility, robust and accurate cash forecasting, a more efficient payments and receivables process, and fraud prevention. All of these areas are ‘must-haves’ for many organizations, so the first building block for the roadmap is finding a solution that can satisfy them.
However, alongside considering your immediate needs in your roadmap it is also important to plan for the future. To do this, you must look at the internal and external drivers of change for your business and how the treasury will need to support that.
An example of an internal driver could be where accelerated geographical growth is expected, and therefore treasury will be required to rapidly connect with new banks, set up new accounts, and adopt new currencies. This comes with challenges around dealing with country-specific requirements for payment formats and new types of bank connectivity, so your chosen technology solutions should be capable of adopting these easily.
Similarly, for external drivers you can look at the current markets you operate in and identify any expected developments in payments and banking initiatives. Current examples of external drivers for those operating in the Nordics and Europe include the P27 Nordic payments initiative or PSD2 electronic payments services regulations. Once again, your technology solutions should be chosen to ensure you are able to keep pace with these changes.
Self-hosted versus SaaS solution
We find that a number of treasuries have had historic on-premise solutions which have not always kept up to date with the developments in functionality and the market. As a result, treasurers have had to establish a number of in-house workarounds which are costly and complex to maintain.
To improve upon this, most technology companies now provide a solution that is delivered as software-as-a-service (SaaS), a deployment method that comes with several benefits.
SaaS solutions are hosted in the ‘cloud’ and hence there is no need for the organization to manage technical matters such as maintaining appropriate servers, backups, etc. Because the solution is managed in the cloud by the vendor, there is no longer a need for users to manually upgrade their solutions and perform the associated regression testing – upgrades are tested and deployed by the vendor on a regular basis, ensuring all organizations using the solution are using the latest version containing the latest functionality. Over the past years, we have seen an increasing number of solutions being offered as a SaaS solution and can see this as a trend that will continue to dominate in the future. You should also consider your organization’s overall IT strategy as it is critical to ensure you are aligned with this.
All-in-one versus best of breed
Over the years we have seen significant shifts in the treasury technology market with innovative and specialized Fintech solutions driving advancements in the market. These applications are often focused on specific areas of functionality rather than covering the broad set of requirements a treasury function may have. They are often meant to be complemented by other platforms to form a suite of treasury applications that cover all requirements.
Hence, the key consideration for an organization is whether to opt for an ‘all-in-one’ TMS or to deploy a stable of ‘best of breed’ solutions. An all-in-one TMS comes with clear benefits such as a single platform to handle all treasury transactions/processes and fewer interfaces to monitor and maintain.
However, for some organizations the all-in-one TMS comes at a significant initial and ongoing cost commitment when their requirements aren’t as broad compared to the functionality on offer. Although many of the vendors of all-in-one TMSs allow organizations to choose which modules of the platform they utilize for a reduced license fee, it is often not the case that if you are only using 50% of the functionality you will be paying 50% of the price. A much more palatable solution comes in the form of best-of-breed solutions, which deliver a more flexible technology landscape utilizing specialized systems that may address the many unique requirements of a treasury function, at a lower cost than the all-in-one TMS. Previously the use of multiple platforms was not favorable due to difficulties that could be faced such as technical integration and reporting. However, the rising use of digital APIs has improved the way systems interface with each other. Also, data-warehouses coupled with BI solutions has enabled reporting based on data sourced from a variety of platforms.
Typically, when implementing a new system you will sign a license agreement for a minimum 5-year term, so it is important to ensure you have considered the suitability of the technology partner(s) and the functionality to support you in your digitalization over many years. During the selection process, it is important to perform an analysis of partners and vendors focused on their experience, innovation roadmap, development track-record, reliability, and support model. These are attributes that will demonstrate to you that the vendor is able to support your business not only now but also in the future, as your operations and the demands placed upon the treasury function change as your business grows and evolves.
Final comments
One size does not fit all treasury functions, as each organization’s treasury remit and activities will drive the appropriate solution or solutions.