Treasury & Cash Management

FINANCE & CAPITAL | MANAGEMENT: Accounting

SIBOS SUPERSECTION 2014 | INTRODUCTION
The Sibos financial services conference—sponsored each year by the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (SWIFT)—will be held in Boston this year in September and, according to organizers, is likely to have a record turnout of attendees and media.

The need for financing for supply-side firms continues to grow—particularly in emerging and frontier markets. More companies are looking to SCF to fill this gap.

SIBOS SUPERSECTION 2014 | THE INNOVATORS
Treasury solutions still don’t provide much business intelligence as they lack good integration with ERP systems. But banks and vendors are starting to close the gap.

SIBOS SUPERSECTION 2014 | SUPPLY CHAIN FINANCE
New SCF solutions are offering a range of tools to help suppliers manage working capital and diversify funding sources.

Global Finance gathered executives in London for its annual subcustody roundtable. Participants focused on the impact of new European regulations on subcustodial banks, outsourcing and how technology is affecting the market.

MILESTONES: EUROPE
African success story M-Pesa dials up Europe.

COVER STORY: CRYPTOCURRENCIES
Still in their infancy, cryptocurrencies could change the way that companies manage payments for the goods and services that are the essence of global trade. As the bitcoin surge picks up momentum, corporate financial executives are wondering what it means for their business and how they can manage the risk of adopting—or not adopting—digital currencies.

MILESTONES: RUSSIA

Featuring:
BANK OF AMERICA | MERRILL LYNCH GLOBAL CUSTODY SERVICES
BNP PARIBAS SECURITIES SERVICES
CIBC MELLON
UNICREDIT GLOBAL SECURITIES SERVICES

TECHNOLOGY | CORPORATE CONNECTIVITY
Corporates and their banking partners still often speak different digital languages, but new initiatives by SWIFT and SAP should make connectivity easier. And increasing competition will be a good thing for corporates, sparking innovation and driving down costs.

NBCUniversal is the latest in a long line of companies looking to take advantage of business process outsourcing for some of its finance functions.

The People’s Bank of China and the African Development Bank agreed last week to establish a $2 billion co-financing fund.

The banks of North America as a group are fundamentally strong. Of 30 US banks that participated in the Federal Reserve’s second round of stress tests, 25 passed with flying colors, according to results released in March.

Corporate banking has always lagged the retail sector when it comes to the adoption of digital technologies, but mobile-banking services are gathering pace—and some visionaries are even contemplating banking services based on wearable technologies.

Fast-paced developments in China and overseas are bolstering the renminbi’s international expansion.

While Latin American banks continued to expand their client base and footprints, the sector still faced important challenges.

Since the global financial crisis, US regional banks have taken market share in corporate banking away from the national money-center banks, which have dialed back on risk to rebuild their balance sheets.

The financial system in Africa varies from the highly developed banking institutions of South Africa and Nigeria to the barely organized banking sector of South Sudan, the world’s newest country.

In our 21st annual survey, Global Finance identifies the best banks in 150 countries and eight regions. The winners are not always the biggest banks, but rather, the best—those with the qualities that corporations should look for when choosing a bank.