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How to Solve the 4 Main Payments Challenges
| 18-07-2019 | BELLIN |
Sascha Kopp has been a Consulting Director with BELLIN for over 10 years. He has successfully accompanied and implemented well over 100 payments projects in international groups. In this interview, based on our on-demand webinar, he outlines the 4 main payments challenges for corporates and how to best tackle them.
#1 payments challenge: a complex set-up
What is the biggest challenge for international businesses in handling their payments?
When it comes to payments, the biggest challenge for companies is usually their existing set-up. Very often we witness the following: You have banks on one side, ERP systems on the other side, and the individual entities in the middle. They all exchange payment data, generated by various technologies and in different formats, communicated by several channels. Companies find it difficult to manage this complexity.
How can companies make sense of this complex set-up of several e-banking systems, payment platforms and communication channels?
A payments solution, such as BELLIN’s integrated payments platform in the tm5 treasury management system, allows corporates to leave complex set-ups behind: instead, they experience simplicity with one platform that is accessible to all group companies and connected to all ERP systems and banks. tm5 can be used with any payment format.
You can access it on a desktop computer, mobile phone or tablet. All you need is Internet access. One of the many benefits of this solution is that it is scalable and can be adapted to changing company requirements – and we all know companies change all the time. Every time a new entity is added, no matter where in the world, this company and its banks can easily be connected to the payment platform. There is no need for an additional solution. The tm5 platform handles it all and is easy to use, transparent and secure when communicating data.
#2 payments challenge: fraud and cyber crime
How important is payment fraud?
Fraud, cyber crime and internal manipulation have been increasing dramatically for years. In 2016, the Leoni Group lost 40 million euros to payment fraud. In 2017, ABB reported a fraud case amounting to 100 million dollars. Companies lose more and more money and the number of attacks has been growing. This was confirmed by the AFP Payments Fraud & Control Survey published in April 2019: 82% of companies report having fallen victim to payment fraud.
How can companies best protect themselves against payment fraud?
Organizations currently invest a lot of time and money in fraud prevention. The best way of achieving payment security is to eliminate vulnerabilities, i.e. by using a multi-bank payments platform with integrated user permissions management such as BELLIN’s tm5. Thanks to a single point of entry and an additional security measure by way of 2-factor authentication in the BELLIN Connect app, tm5 protects companies from external threats. The integrated permissions functionality enables companies to define and manage user rights and implement dual approval for payment processing, thus ensuring compliance.
#3 payments challenge: cost
How can companies save money in their payment process?
In addition to bank fees, payments processing eats up resources. For most companies a centralized set-up is the most efficient – as well as the most secure – option to manage group-wide payments with only one team. As a web-based system, tm5 also enables decentralized cooperation using a central platform. We refer to this approach as Load-balanced Treasury.
What is the most affordable payments set-up for companies?
The most cost-efficient combination of formats and connectivity always depends on the countries in which payments are processed as well as on the volume of payments. tm5 offers all types of connectivity, be it local standards such as EBICS, host-to-host connections to main banks or a global solution such as SWIFT. BELLIN consultants offer advice on how to find the most affordable solution.
#4 payments challenge: new banking partners
What is the impact of changes to the banking landscape on corporate payments?
Companies are hit hard by changes to the banking landscape. In recent years, some banks have discontinued their services in some countries over night. But even when the selection of a new banking partner is driven by strategic and cost reasons, this change usually goes hand in hand with a new, additional e-banking system.
But it could be so much simpler: Companies who process their payments on the integrated payments platform in the tm5 treasury management system always work with the same user interface. This user interface is independent of the banks, channels and payment formats a company uses.
All in all:
Make the move to a central, multi-bank payments platform and benefit from:
Sascha Kopp
Consulting Director at BELLIN
Does your payment land in the correct currency account?
| 16-07-2019 | by Pieter de Kiewit |
In most SMEs in Europe a payment from US clients will be transferred in US dollars and lands in EURO’s. Banks facilitate this process and their fees consist of two parts:
If you receive payments in US dollars regularly, you can consider opening a US dollar bank account. Therefore, you will avoid constant payment of the conversion rate. This is most relevant when you also make payments from this account. All big banks offer bank accounts in various currencies as a paid service.
Let’s take a deeper dive into the signals that I received: A foreign client made a payment in dollars with his dollar account. He transferred the dollars to the Euro account of my contact. This was all documented. Nevertheless, the bank charged transaction and conversion fees. Luckily this was discovered by my contact. After informing the bank about this issue, the bank repaired it all.
There could be various reasons why this happened. We all know that the global IT landscape in traditional banks consists of many different systems of a different age. A network problem could be a possible issue. The likelihood of this happening again is high, so be aware! Also, although we do not like this, it could be that this payment was handled manually. A mistake is easily made, hopefully not too frequent. It would be the worst case scenario when banks manipulate payments in order to claim fees. Let’s assume this is not the case.
The point I want to make: check if payments land on the proper currency account or it will cost you!
Any of you encountered misrouted payments?
PS From my own experience: in your ebanking environment, the default currency is not necessarily the currency the account is in. My GBP account had EURO as default currency…
Pieter de Kiewit
Owner Treasurer Search
RT story: From professional athlete to Treasury Director
| 15-07-2019 | by treasuryXL | Kendra Keydeniers
Best example of a great career in treasury (before and) after graduating from the RT program is the one of Jarno Timmerman. This is his Register Treasurer Story:
Professional athlete in The Premier League of volleyball, Jarno decided to further expand his passion for and knowledge about treasury by participating in the RT program of 2007.
Starting as Treasury Manager at Nike, following by a role as Manager Group Treasury at KLM/Air France and winning the award of being Asia’s Best Treasurer by The Corporate Treasurer Awards working at AkzoNobel – you can say that Jarno is an outstanding treasurer who must be passionate about his work.
Jarno returned to Nike in January 2018 and started as Director Treasury EMEA, surrounded with top athletes from around the world. Being a former professional athlete himself, working for Nike is feeling at home. Nike and Jarno is an obvious match.
Why did you start with the RT program?
I started the program because I felt it would elevate me as a treasury professional. I studied economics also at the VU, already positioning myself for treasury. I did that by taking classes like Corporate Finance for example and the RT felt as a natural next step to improve my treasury knowledge.
How did the education help you in your career?
After the completion of the RT it definitely helped me in my career. Besides being a more rounded treasury professional also to the outside world it allowed me to distinguish myself and definitely help me in my career to get a promoted role in a new company for example.
Therefore, I can for sure recommend every Treasury professional to consider participating the RT program. It will be an investment you need to put in, primarily in time at the expense of your social life for a while, but it will pay off.
Which topics covered were most interesting?
The program is a strong combination of die-hard deep dives in treasury subjects like cash management and derivatives, but it also brings a nice introduction to overlapping subjects like tax and legal which allows to have a better understanding of those topics as well.
The program also brings the right balance between theory and practice. Therefore, the second strong element of the program is the ‘mandatory physical presence’ to the classes and sessions. This gives a nice discipline, rhythm and momentum to keep track of the subjects, challenges and tasks at hand.
Are you still in touch with your peers?
Maybe even more important is that the journey you undergo with a group of similar treasury professionals, providing synergies, keeping you motivated and allows you to build up an important network that will last throughout your career. Although I finished the program more than 10 years ago, I still keep contact with many treasury professionals from my year.
So in short, the RT program is about knowledge & network and will definitely elevate your career as treasury professional!
More stories please! Read the RT story of Mathieu and Richard and/or read more info about the RT program here.
The post-graduate Executive Treasury Management & Corporate Finance programme combines two finance disciplines: Treasury Management and Corporate Finance. These disciplines largely overlap and are inextricably connected.
After a successful completion of all required modules, the title of Registered Treasurer (RT) is conferred by the Registered Treasurer foundation.
The course will start on 1 September 2019. Why wait? Apply today!