A lesson learned from the global financial crises was how critical free cash flow can be for corporates, their customers, and their suppliers. As businesses seek to unlock cash flow from day-to-day operations, savvy treasurers have discovered vendor payments as a means to extend payment terms while improving vendor health, writes Chris Bozek, Managing Director, Head of Global Trade and Supply Chain Products Bank of America Merrill Lynch.
The work corporates are doing to streamline cash management processes should not end with SEPA implementation, says. Indeed, the principles and ideas underpinning SEPA can inform progress even in the most challenging markets.
The Royal Bank of Scotland has launched a new service that lets corporates manage up to 18 local Chinese bank accounts through a single global electronic banking platform.
Managing cash in stores remains a major challenge for retailers – trapped cash hinders working capital management and is unavailable for investment, debt repayment or business expansion. But new ways are being developed to manage store cash …
When the US Federal Reserve Banks asked for comments on improving the US payments system, the tech industry and merchants said “let’s go” while the incumbents said “whoa, not so fast” …
With a revolution in consumer payments happening at the point-of-sale, online and increasingly through the mobile channel, there is a need and an appetite for change across every aspect of the payments industry.
Banks don’t really understand the needs of corporates and are often so busy focusing on selling that they forget basic customer requirements, according to speakers at the IPS conference in London this week
The banking industry is complex by its nature but banks and bankers should look up from their budgets, listen to their customers, stop whining about regulations and collaborate on industry issues.
Orange Business Services and technology infrastructure provider SIA have done a deal aimed at encouraging European banks and merchants to manage more payments via mobile point of sale terminals.
BNY Mellon says a global overhaul of its payments infrastructure will position it for “a new era” in payments and fundamentally change its relationship with customers and other financial institutions internationally.
The UK’s Clearing House Automated Payments System turned 30 earlier this year. It wasn’t an anniversary marked with street parties by a grateful nation, but in its quiet way it was a significant moment, for – in common with the whole payments infrastructure – the system is going through a period of change. Phil Kenworthy, […]
A group of major international banks have agreed to jointly develop and use the centralised Know Your Customer Registry announced by Swift at the start of the year.
Ten years ago business-to-business payment options were pretty limited: cheques dominated, and organisations only had the option of 3-day BACS payments or expensive CHAPS transactions for high value, same day payments.
Senior transaction banking executives have called for a political discussion to resolve the issue of emerging market access to banking services caused by the reduction of the correspondent banking services network.
While many large organisations have already planned and delivered their SEPA compliance, smaller and mid-sized firms have woefully underprepared for the deadline. Banks and payment organisations need to be prepared for a certain amount of confusion and resistance from UK customers who may not understand the reasons for the change, and may be reluctant to put the necessary changes into effect.
Regulation is driving a structural shift away from capital markets and investment banking towards transaction banking – but even this hint of opportunity could be under threat, according to senior financial services panellists speaking at the BAFT IFSA conference in London this week.
Major global banks need to grasp social networks, cloud computing, user-generated content, personalisation, contextual information and gamification if they are to maintain a competitive edge and stay connected with customers. But they also need to ensure their innovations are transmitted thoroughly to all employees, according to panellists at the BAFT IFSA conference in London on Monday.
The European Central Bank has released statistics that it says show that migration to the Single Euro Payments Area “gathered pace strongly” in December and urged market participants not to relax in their migration efforts. Earlier this month the European Commission announced a six-month extension past the 1 February deadline by which time all payments […]
The EC proposes that banks and payment services providers will not be penalised for continuing to process legacy payments during a six-month “transition period” after the February deadline for SEPA migration.
HSBC has rolled out a service that will allow online retailers to give customers the choice to pay in various international currencies.
The European Central Bank is to create a Euro Retail Payments Board to replace the Single Euro Payments Area Council and “help foster the development of an integrated, innovative and competitive market for retail payments in euro in the European Union”.
Five international banks are to become direct participants in the UK’s CHAPS high-value payments system as part of the Bank of England’s efforts to reduce systemic risk.
Bank of America Merrill Lynch has signed a multi-year agreement with Earthport to “significantly expand Bank of America Merrill Lynch’s low value clearing capabilities globally, and to advance the efficiency of its high volume, low value payments”.
The technology that banks offer clients can be thought of as a true gift, enabling improvements that can reduce risk, increase efficiency and ultimately put firms on a surer footing. And it is the most advanced and newest platforms which grab everyone’s attention.
Swift’s head of banking talks about how the industry co-operative plans to build services based the data flowing through its interbank messaging systems.
Separating customer billing from core systems can have dramatic effects on the bottom line – a study by Boston Consulting Group at one bank found that 17% of clients were unprofitable.
Compliance concerns are causing nearly one-third of banks to turn away business, according to a new report from Aite Group.
Polish IT specialist Comarch has launched a host-to-host banking solution designed to allow corporates to issue bank instructions directly from their enterprise resource planning software.
Standard Bank of South Africa has launched a major expansion drive in West Africa, starting with the opening of a new representative office in the Côte d’Ivoire. The bank plans to use the Abidjan office to become familiar with the region and identify further opportunities within it.
Cloud computing company SAP has signed a deal with Citibank for a major new cloud platform that promises to simplify corporate to bank connectivity for some of the world’s largest banks, Banking Technology has learned.
Standard Chartered has completed the rollout of its corporate actions platform across 39 countries in Asia, Africa and the Middle East, which the bank says will help clients cut costs and reduce their corporate actions risk exposure.
HSBC Bank China has completed its first electronic tax payment for a corporate client in Shanghai, in a move that the bank says is the first among all foreign banks I the city. The new tax payment service deducts funds in real time and enables customers to complete tax reports and process payments on the government’s tax system terminal from any location.
Geopolitical shifts and increasing protectionism among nations will mean that the universal banking model is no longer sustainable – and there is little that anyone can do, according to Bill Michael, EMA head of financial services at KPMG. “The future shape of banking is beyond the control of boards, individual regulators or countries alone,” Michael […]
Polish IT specialist Comarch has launched a mobile business banking solution aimed at banks that want to give corporates, SMEs and micro business customers a mobile offering.
Citi has expanded its electronic bank account management service to 55 countries, in a move that the bank says will help corporate treasurers to better manage risk. The bank also expanded its cross-border WorldLink payment service into new emerging markets.
Slowly but steadily, financial institutions and their corporate clients are beginning to talk about growth again. Markets are gradually shifting from a purely defensive position; the Fed has spoken about tapering its quantitative easing programme; and many companies are putting expansion back on the agenda in response, writes Greg Murray.
Lloyds Banking Group’s partnership with Standard Chartered Bank, announced this week, is likely to be the first of a series of such deals intended to allow the UK-focused bank to extend its client services overseas.
As trade flows shift across regions and economic headwinds blow, the trade finance business is facing challenges. Anne Queree examines how correspondent banking networks are adapting
Bank of America Merrill Lynch (BAML) has completed consolidation of client transaction banking data from multiple systems into a single centralised data repository. The service will provide corporate clients with up to 14 months of data online or in file format.
Global non-cash payments volumes continue to rise unabated, according to World Payments Report 2013 (WPR 2013), which was launched today. Non-cash transactions grew by 8.8 per cent during 2011 (the latest year for which full data is available) and are predicted to top 333 billion for 2012.
