Treasury & Cash Management

BUILD OR BUY?   By Rebecca Brace   As regulation and competition in the transaction banking space spur higher levels of technology investment, banks and vendors have found new ways of working together.   The demands on global transaction banks ...

MILESTONES: IMF   By Luca Ventura “Temporary capital controls might prove useful,” Christine Lagarde said to the audience gathered at the Malaysian Economic Association in Kuala Lumpur in November.   Lagarde at the IMF takes a marked departure on cross-border ...

UNCHARTED WATERS   By Denise Bedell   At SWIFT’s annual Sibos conference in October, corporates were treated to a range of presentations on topics as diverse as reference data, BPOs and Asian treasury centers.   The corporate stream at Sibos ...

A CONTROLLING INTEREST   By Rebecca Brace   Cash visibility and control keeps treasurers awake at night, but thanks to rising use of new standards and technology, attaining a clearer picture is becoming much easier.   Controlling the company’s cash ...

THE STARS ALIGN   By Rebecca Brace   As treasurers seek to optimize liquidity and working capital, cash and trade solutions are increasingly in sync.   Treasury and trade used to be two separate disciplines. But in recent years there ...

MILESTONES: SLOVENIA   By Valentina Pasquali   With all eyes on the much larger Spain and Italy, Slovenia might actually turn out to be the next eurozone country in line for a bailout.   Bets are on as to whether ...

DOMINANT REGIONAL PLAYERS   By Kathryn Tully   Since 2002, Global Finance has honored the best trade finance banks by region and by country based on a number of criteria, including technological innovation, transaction volumes, global coverage, customer service and ...

HIGH TECH MEETS THE LAW OF INERTIA   By Paula Green   Treasurers wanting to move to high-end forecasting solutions still face an uphill challenge.   Even when a treasurer wants to move to a high-end system for forecasting cash, ...

First and foremost, it reduces administration and documentation, and vastly reduces the time-to-payment on secured trade account receivables. With an L/C at site it can typically take 10-14 days to receive funds—while awaiting documents to arrive. But with a BPO ...

  The impact of Basel III on trade was a key topic of discussion at Sibos. As one delegate said: “We have grave concerns around local regulators’ interpretation of liquidity coverage ratios and minimum capital ratios.” “Regulators need to ensure ...

Is trade becoming an asset class? Some market participants are pushing in that direction. This, of course, is easier said than done, but the cost of getting it wrong could be enormous. “Ultimately corporates pay the price,” said Kah Chye ...

  Gone are the days when companies wishing to connect directly with their banks via SWIFT had to invest huge resources—in time and money—house highly expensive equipment, and maintain IT resources to manage the connection. Although the connectivity entity’s first ...

The cost of cross-currency payments is more than it need be, contends Rocky Motwani, MD at J. P. Morgan. He noted that most cross-currency payments are done via wire, which is essentially a high-value solution to a low-value problem. “You ...

Mark Flawn, assistant treasurer at National Grid, said cloud-based access fit with a group-wide initiative to use remotely hosted solutions. “We are able to achieve better results by using a cloud platform, as it removes the overhead of maintaining the ...

Treasurers will need to get their security message out quickly, according to the findings of a new survey out by Treasury Strategies and Fundtech. The survey, polling treasurers at over 200 global corporates, looked at demand for multichannel—meaning desktop, tablet ...

End of FDIC Unlimited Insurance: Where Will Companies Stash Cash? Part of the problem, of course, is the potential counterparty risk in some short-term investment vehicles, such as certain money market funds. Many firms moved funds out of MMFs and ...

Security is never far from the lips when any new technology developments arise, and technology developments were, as always, at the heart of many a discussion a the AFP conference. It was the message of a presentation led by Aaron ...

BEYOND CONNECTIVITY   By Rebecca Brace   SWIFT continues to roll out new company-focused initiatives as its corporate user-base grows.   As SWIFT’s corporate membership figures rise—the number currently stands at around 970–the bank-owned cooperative is working on a number ...

ELEGANT, YET SIMPLE   By Paula Green   Corporates are beginning to use mobile finance solutions not only for payments but also to monitor risk and plan for contingencies.   Mobile mania is just beginning to make its way into ...

THE A-GRADERS   By Kathryn Tully   Presenting the Winners’ Circle: A ranking of all the central bank governors who have received “A” grades over the history of Global Finance ’s Central Banker Report Cards—released as part of our 25 ...