Are corporates’ centralisation needs being met by their banking partners?
It is essential for corporates to communicate the finer details to their banking partners; banks must be honest about their limitations in delivering results. September 23, 2013 | Esther TanIf recent trends are of any indication, corporates are increasingly gravitating towards regional treasury centres (RTCs). As discussed during a recent Sibos conference on “Best practices in the centralisation of treasury functions: Are corporates and banks aligned?”, whether these RTCs are located in Singapore, Hong Kong or other financial hubs, corporate treasurers are now looking at how banks can provide them with a one-stop view of cash flows for better visibility and cash mobility. However, the implementation of any process is seldom smooth. It starts from a point where a corporate has to perform its own due diligence, sparing ample time for research before selecting a partner bank to aid in the centralisation process. As the scale of implementation is large, any misstep could prove costly. Although some corporates are sophisticated enough to know exactly what is optimal and what they want as an end result, others often struggle. They approach banks which do not always have their best interests at heart. It is critical for corporates to understand the technicalities of their banking partners; on the other hand, banks should not be overly aggressive in pushing their products to corporates without first understanding the latter’s needs. Centralisation boils down to true cooperation and banks need to be honest about their limitations in delivering results. While some banks are truthful enough, corporates complain that banks often lean toward host-to-host implementation as the first option - corporates prefer flexibility and do not want to be married to a particular bank, as very few banks can deliver on every single request. Therefore, large corporates possessing more than a few bank partnerships worldwide should work on a common implementation to their own benefit; such as using SWIFT as a medium where it shifts the worries of bank-to-bank connectivity out of the picture. It is not uncommon for a product implementati... Please login to read the complete article. If you already have an account, you can login now or subscribe/register.
Categories: Cash, Treasury & Trade, Customer Centricity, Operational Risk & Security, Technology & Operations, Transaction Bankingcash,Customer Centricity,OperationalRiskSecurity,technology,Transaction Banking, Cash, Treasury & Trade,Customer Centricity,Operational Risk & Security,Technology & Operations,Transaction Banking, Keywords:SWIFT, RTC, Centralisation, Cash Mobility, Sibos 2013 SWIFT, RTC, Centralisation, Cash Mobility, Sibos 2013
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