Increasing The Velocity Of Your Clients Money

By Author: Richard Freiberg
Total Articles: 2
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Forward-thinking businesses are seeking to integrate payment systems with business management systems, improve liquidity management, and automate payment processing. For banks, the opportunity lies in offering next generation cash management and liquidity services that truly meet the demands of business.

Banks rightly pride themselves on their status as trusted financial advisers to their corporate customers. And yet, there is a wide gap among the banking community in its current knowledge about what ERP systems are capable of and their importance to the effective management of a business. Banks that understand how corporations systems sit together, the role of legacy ERP applications in the organization, and the place that corporate-to-bank connectivity has in that framework will greatly enhance this status.

We look to banks for their expertise in managing money, investments, liquidity, credits and payments, not for their prowess in IT. Yet, a number of banks are investing heavily in developing payment systems for their customers (SEPA) and wider cash management requirements, which are inflexible, of limited ...
... functionality and unable to adapt to change.

Corporations currently require payments systems that are capable of sharing information in a variety of flexible and customized formats. Corporations need - and are increasingly demanding of their banks - a cash management system that is bank-neutral and integrates with their back-office financial management or ERP systems. Businesses are looking to link their physical and financial supply chains to provide company-wide visibility and control of business and financial processes. Corporations need flexible solutions featuring systems based on open standards, and able to adapt to evolving regulatory and business requirements.

In both our quantitative surveys and focus groups, our research shows that corporate customers have a clear need to receive additional structured remittance information that will allow them to apply a payment quickly. This will enable an efficient posting and reconciliation process. Many companies have expressed a great deal of frustration that the capability is not available

Treasury functions at many organizations are facing the same critical dilemma. Profit pressures are forcing your corporate client's treasury departments to be more efficient and cost effective in their cash management. However, as treasury staffs and resources continue to shrink, the question on the minds of treasurers is: How can I do more with less?

The highlights of this system would be as follows:

Fully automated, next generation enterprise payment system offering a revolutionary change in Payments Infrastructure

Common payment & remittance interface

World class management team - top banking & payments leaders

Common gateway for Domestic & Cross Border Payments

Flexible format for exchanging remittance information - with 72 easily customized fields, 3 of which are mandatory (Invoice #, Date, Currency)

A/P and A/R software that integrates with electronic payments

Provides Straight through Processing of electronic payments into major accounting systems (SAP, PeopleSoft, Oracle, QuickBooks, etc)

Merges payment instructions with settlement

Least cost routing - ACH, Wire Transfer, Check, Swift, etc

Converts currency and settlement on the fly

Greatly reduces settlement, fraud & FX risk

Compression from batch to real time

Highest levels of security, compliance and fraud control

Fully Scaleable with simple integration

Web Based and simple to use from the convenience of any Web Browser - Easy for the sender & receiver

Cost effective, feature rich and fully automated

ASP model - can be White-labeled

Full audit trail with 7 years of payment history

Business Case for the Banks

Enhances your banks capabilities to include remittance information with payments

Enables your banks cash management systems to integrate more effectively with accounts payable and accounts receivable systems to facilitate straight-through-processing

Having remittance information with the payment would increase efficiencies and enhance value to your corporate clients

Provides Thought Leadership and trusted financial adviser status to your corporate clients

Improves efficiencies, enhances value & promotes growth

Accelerates the cash inflows

Slows down the outflows of cash

Manages liquidity and/or borrowing costs

Improved relationships with corporate clients

Enables banks to proactively monitor, predict and pre-empt their corporate customers' liquidity requirements

Business Case for the Corporate Client

Standardized, automated means of processing electronic payments

Payment includes the remittance information

Adds convenience, speed and security to the processing of B2B electronic payments and remittance information

Automatically moves the remittance information with the payment

Based on open standards, and able to adapt to evolving regulatory and business requirements

Ease of use from the convenience of any Web Browser

Integrates seamlessly into the entire information processing network, with a minimum of cost, delay and disruption - Simple integration

Real time information for ease of account reconciliation

Spend less time on non-core account payables and receivables management, and focus on the core treasury and finance challenges

Provides the ability to purchase Spot or Forward Foreign Currency Transactions including gain or loss (for forward contracts and/or revaluation purposes) for posting to the accounting records - FX Capable

Common gateway for cross-spectrum payments

Full audit trail with 7 years of payment history

Timely payments leads to better opportunities

Richard Freiberg is a partner in Global Payment Information Exchange (GPIE), a Payment and Cash Management think tank consisting of some of the world's leading banking and payments experts. He can be contacted at richard.freiberg@gpellc.com