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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 |
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:
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
Owner Treasurer Search
Best read articles of all time – Corporate Governance – It is all about the rules
| 20-06-2018 | treasuryXL |
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:
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
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.
Blockchain for trade finance: A network business
| 19-06-2018 | Carlo de Meijer | TreasuryXL
Trade finance has become one of the top focus issues for blockchain technology use. The number of pilots and other trials that are looking into the opportunities of blockchain technology for trade finance and supply chain have dramatically increased in 2017 and intensified this year. The sheer complexity of trade finance is thereby reflected in the variety of potential solutions. Different parts of the ‘trade finance supply chain’ had their own blockchain initiative. A large number of these pilots however stopped or failed being too narrow in their set-up. These were mainly focused on certain – and limited – aspects of the trade finance chain.
The various parties who are involved in the trade finance and supply chain business however are increasingly becoming aware that stand-alone solutions are not the answer to the various challenges in the trade finance industry. The success of using blockchain in trade finance purposes stands or falls with networks effects and if it is adopted widely. They are increasingly convinced that as well as developing a platform and blockchain solution, a network must be in place that covers all the parties in the trade finance chain so that the full transaction can be completed on the blockchain.
As a result we have seen the upcoming of blockchain trade finance networks with exotic names like Batavia, Marco Polo, We.Trade and more are expected to follow. In this blog I want to go somewhat deeper in these various offerings.
Trade finance: a complex process
Trade finance is a complex process. Various parties from exporters, importers, banks, truckers, shippers, custom agents and regulators all require checks and verifications at various points along the chain. Each interlocking part of the chain depends on successful completion of the previous phase and on reliable information.
Banks thereby play a large role in the trade finance chain, notably in the supply of letters of credit and other financing mechanism. Letters of credit are the most widely used way of financing between importers and exporters, helping guarantee trade transactions. At the moment buyers and suppliers use a letter of credit typically concluded by physically transferring paper documents to underpin transactions. This process however creates a long paper trail and it may take between five and ten days to exchange documentation.
A network business
Trade finance is a network business. It is an activity that often involves multiple counterparties in various and far-away parts of the world. Creating a blockchain trade finance ecosystem that combines all the different stages of trade from production to end-delivery is a must. For blockchain trade finance platforms to work in an optimal way this means on-boarding other banks, regulators, customs and all parts of the trade cycle. This asks for the setting up of blockchain-enabled trade finance platforms or networks with common standards enabling interoperability.
“Of course we are closely monitoring initiatives among all the other consortia that we know about developing trade finance on blockchain and we are mindful of ensuring inter-operability where we can”. Hubert Benoot, Head of Trade KBC and chairman of We.Trade
Read the full article of our expert Carlo de Meijer on LinkedIn
Carlo de Meijer
Economist and researcher