BCR Publishing
We are the leading provider of news, market intelligence, events and training for the global receivables finance industry.
Working with industry leading organisations, experts, governments and universities, BCR Publications delivers expertise in factoring, receivables and supply chain finance to a global audience.
BCR has long been a beacon of innovation and excellence in the realm of receivables finance, playing an instrumental role in shaping the industry’s international landscape. Through its comprehensive conferences, insightful publications, and thought leadership, BCR has facilitated crucial dialogues and connections among industry professionals, driving forward the development of receivables finance globally.
Webinar: Optimize your payment processing security
| 13-6-2019 | BELLIN |
How to optimize your payment processing security via administrative control
This webinar installment takes a deep dive into the need for a centralized payments platform that maintains a hyper-focus on security. Join in as we discuss, how the essential synergy between technical security specifications and administrative controls creates optimally safe and efficient processes.
Webinar start: 27 June 2019 | 16:00 CEST
Webinar run time: approx. 20 min
Register here
Katja Franz, Senior Treasury Consultant
A graduate of International Business at Fachhochschule Trier and European Business & language at National College of Ireland, Katja Franz has a background in treasury and cash management that has spanned the globe. With experience in banking and reconciliation at Hertz Europe, cash and credit administration at State Street Bank, as payment implementation specialist for Bankhaus August Lenz and as freelance consultant, she has brought success to projects across banking and treasury.
At BELLIN Katja has brought her experience and her passion to the BELLIN treasury consulting team, focusing on treasury management software, project management and process optimization. She is a keen team player who is committed to her work and always eager to learn something new.
About BELLIN
BELLIN is the global leader in technology for corporate banking and treasury. We provide solutions for the financial sector, catering to a range of clients from large multinationals to SMEs and banks. Founded by a treasurer, BELLIN has been championing innovation and out-of-the-box thinking since 1998. With the treasury software tm5 as the centerpiece, BELLIN makes a fundamental difference by offering solutions that zero in on the relationship between corporates and banks and cover everything from payments to FX, cash and risk management. BELLIN is an international company with offices on four continents, powered by a trailblazing fintech spirit and yet firmly rooted in the heritage of German craftsmanship and engineering. BELLIN delights 500 clients and over 80,000 users around the globe.
New generation treasurer studies at the Vrije Universiteit
| 13-06-2019 | by Pieter de Kiewit |
Research in our candidate files, filled with treasury experts and managers, shows that only a small fraction of the population completed a job specific education. Over time I see the level of impact and complexity of corporate treasury rising and an increase in treasury students. As a member of the so-called Curatorium (management board) of the post graduate program “Treasury Management & Corporate Finance”, I consider it my task to let you know about this education. A task I am of course happy to pick up.
You can get a first overview on the partner page of the Vrije Universiteit on our site and their own Treasury Management and Corporate Finance program page. In the next months we will post blogs with profiles of Register Treasurer (RT) graduates with their motives, experiences and career paths. This will give you better insight in the type of treasurers that are “RT material”. Furthermore we will invite graduates to share thesis and other research summaries that will give you a sample of the level of what you can expect.
Originally the program was in Dutch and aimed at a relatively narrow candidates working in a corporate environment. An important change is that the program now is in English. The student population is a mixture of consultants, bankers, interim managers and experts working in corporate and non-profit environments. As the value of the student peer group has huge impact on the program, this diversity brings a lot extra.
Our continued information flow will hopefully help aspiring students and their managers making a sound decision. The program is not for everybody, we hope to see you soon and find out if you have what it takes.
PS The next information session is at June 26, 2019.
Read stories from graduates who participated the Register Treasurer (RT) program. How does their treasury career look like now?
Pieter de Kiewit
Owner Treasurer Search
The (Im)possibility of Liquidity Planning
| 07-06-2019 | BELLIN |
Liquidity planning is extremely essential. Companies can survive a certain amount of time without making a profit. However, they will go down within just a few days if they lack the necessary liquidity. Therefore, liquidity planning is high on any treasury’s agenda.
Suddenly, cash was in short supply. Everything ground to a halt. Indeed, the crisis of 2008 has shown how important it is for companies of all sizes and industries to plan with liquid assets. They have to ensure that liquidity fluctuations will be hedged adequately and that times of tight liquidity can be overcome easily. Even long-term profitability cannot always serve as a guarantee that financial markets will be able to provide sufficient liquidity in times of crisis – unless waterproof strategic agreements for financing liquidity shortages were concluded long before the crisis. Liquidity planning is not the same as planning a company’s cash balance. Instead, it forms a basis for strategic hedging decisions in interest, currency and commodity management.
When you begin dealing with liquidity planning in your business, you may be disappointed at first. You will not be able to transfer experience from a balance sheet and profit and loss (P&L) calculation. As a first step, you will need to define liquidity planning and set your treasury’s liquidity planning goals.
Liquidity Planning Versus Cash Management
Liquidity planning serves to illustrate cash flows from all organizational units over time. lt distinguishes between different cash flows, e.g. customer payments and HR payments. The timeline – the underlying planning horizon – usually includes the next six to twelve months. However, certain business models may require planning several years in advance. Never confuse liquidity planning with daily cash management, which focuses only on future balances of individual bank accounts and on creating daily cash forecasts.
The quality of balance sheet and P&L planning is determined by its accuracy. The better the planning, the more accurate the predictions. In the relationship of balance sheet and P&L to liquidity planning, the most important factor is the end result: both plans should result in the same balance at the end of a period. To ascertain this figure alone, a treasury department would not need to create its own liquidity plan. Yet from a treasury perspective, the projected balance is only a means of checking plausibility at the end of the planning horizon. Even the smallest change in an underlying transaction or payment can lead to significant changes in the final result, without affecting overall corporate success or reducing the quality or even sense of liquidity planning as a whole.
A Basis for Hedging
Determining a precise cash balance at the end of a particular planning horizon is not the goal of liquidity planning. Its focus lies on analyzing the differences between an original plan and a rolling plan. The treasury department bases hedging decisions on the original plan. Then, it examines the reliability of these risk management measures. If the treasury finds significant inconsistencies, it can swap or create new foreign exchange deals, negotiate new credit lines or revise the maturities of interest bearing transactions.
Liquidity planning is possible. However, it is impossible to plan liquidity in terms of cash on hand at a particular date. With this different goal in mind, liquidity planning becomes the basis for strategic hedging decisions. Only a liquidity plan that is kept up to date can provide information on when to expect cash flows in foreign currency, when group companies need more liquidity within the planning period and when excess liquidity will be returned.
Interest and Currency Risk
Liquidity planning is not just about liquid assets, however. Flawed planning can have negative side effects, particularly with regard to financing and related interest. High interest rates can reduce income and reserve assets of companies that are notoriously short, i.e. always in a position of net debt. At the opposite end of the spectrum, companies in a «long» position, i.e. those who have sufficient liquidity to finance their ongoing business, miss out on interest earnings. They rarely consider such opportunity interest.
Interest topics aside, liquidity planning also deals with the somewhat more complex issue of foreign exchange risk. Currency exposure can also affect cash on hand. The media frequently circulate striking examples, although they often wrongly blame derivatives for lack of liquidity or financial losses. In any case, it is important to note that a shift in exchange rates may have a decisive influence on the liquidity development of companies active in countries with foreign currencies.
Liquidity planning made easy in tm5
With tm5’s cash and liquidity management solution, users benefit from real-time liquidity management across your entire corporate group.
Our technology lets you make short-term or long-term liquidity forecasts across all subsidiaries in the corporate group. Be prepared for all eventualities.
Product: Cash & Liquidity Management
Room to Breathe
No company can exist without liquidity planning: it would be incapacitated within just a few days. Primary liquidity risk factors take a company’s liquidity – its room to breathe. Cash management is essential for short-term planning horizons. In the medium and long term, companies require a liquidity plan, a prerequisite for meaningful risk management, which is cleanly separated from corporate financial planning. These two topic areas deal with interest and currency management from different perspectives. Companies need to ensure a basic liquidity supply, consider supply costs and take into account possible fluctuations caused by currency exchange factors.
Martin Bellin
Founder & CEO at BELLIN