Sibos 2020: Banking Circle launches POBO and COBO payments transparency solutions
Financial infrastructure provider, Banking Circle, has launched its new payments-on-behalf-of (POBO) and collections-on-behalf-of solutions (COBO) to tackle the compliance and reconciliation issues.
The new Banking Circle solutions address business-to-business (B2B) payments reconciliation issues which, in turn, can cause delays in settlement and impact cash flow.
The solutions are available globally through Swift, Faster Payments, CHAPS, SEPA and local clearing.
POBO and COBO aim to enable financial institutions to offer immediate visibility of the sender’s details when processing B2B payments, and to collect funds locally into accounts in the underlying customer’s name.
The solutions are available globally through Swift, Faster Payments, CHAPS, single euro payments area (SEPA) and local clearing.
POBO and COBO are currently available to payments businesses in 24 currencies. Its currency offerings to banks currently includes British sterling and euros, with more currencies and local capabilities planned down the line.
Financial institutions can manage payments on behalf of their customers, enabling funds to be sent out and received with full payment transparency, providing clarity and ease of reconciliation for beneficiaries.
The services also allows payments businesses and banks to comply with Wire Transfer Regulations (WTR). POBO and COBO provide banks and payments businesses with an optimised end-to-end payment solution and visible payment chain which is WTR compliant.
“Existing solutions do not provide institutions with true unique international bank account number (IBANs), with payments often still received in the name of the payments business or bank rather than in the name of the payer,” explains Anders la Cour, co-founder and CEO of Banking Circle. “And this lack of payments ownership can lead to reconciliation issues which, in turn, can delay settlement times, thereby impacting on cash flow.”
See also: Banking Circle helps Amazon sellers avoid international fees in US
He adds: “In response, we have built a solution that allows banks and payments businesses to give their customers access to transparent, local payments and collections across borders, without the need for a physical presence or a relationship with a correspondent bank in that region.
“It was important that our new solution allowed providers to comply with complex payments regulation without Banking Circle taking ownership of the relationship. As a result, the financial institution remains in control of the relationship and customer experience, while Banking Circle provides the infrastructure for payments and collections to be made quickly and at low cost, regardless of international borders.”
Smoother, faster reconciliation is achieved through dedicated multi-currency virtual IBANs in multiple jurisdictions, delivering improvements across reconciliation, consolidation, risk management, operational efficiency, transaction processing and liquidity management.
The solutions can be accessed by new and existing Banking Circle clients, with just a connected or unconnected bank identifier code (BIC) required by the payments business. POBO and COBO are available via application programming interface (API), user interface (UI) and Swift.
Read more: Banking Circle nabs first banking licence from Luxembourg regulators
