Ahead of Sibos 2019, Finastra commissioned IDC to survey 400 corporate treasurers around the world to reveal key treasury priorities. The findings* show that access to funding, risk management and improving usability are top of mind for treasurers today. Looking three years ahead, these challenges are expected to diversify to include demand for real-time capabilities and liquidity optimization, meaning new business models, which will drive a greater focus on open platforms for banks to deliver enhanced services at scale.

Today’s top three key priorities for corporate treasurers are: 

·         84% Improve access to funding 

• 57% Predict and manage risk  
• 53% Improve usability and staff productivity 

By 2022, treasurers expect their priorities to change and diversify:  

• 59% Get real-time data and payments
• 54% Improve access to funding  
• 52% Predict and manage risk   

47% of corporate treasurers see opportunities for banks to improve their product offerings to provide more innovative solutions – beyond traditional services. This presents opportunities for banks to partner with ecosystem players and deliver value-added services.

“APIs and cloud-based solutions will be critical if banks are to deliver on the changing requirements outlined by corporate treasurers,” said Torsten Pull, Senior Vice President & General Manager for Corporate Banking at Finastra. “Open Banking and evolving treasury technologies are transforming the corporate sector, forcing financial service providers to evaluate the role they want to play in the digital ecosystem. We’re also seeing changes in both bank and corporate treasury business models, with greater importance placed on collaboration and choice, particularly through the creation of digital treasury platforms. Platforms like Finastra’s FusionFabric.cloud will allow banks and their corporate clients to co-innovate and co-develop new solutions.”

The new IDC Infobrief, Treasury Ecosystems- Opening Today for Tomorrow, reinforces this fundamental change to transactional business and operating models. Most notably, they expect that the increasing impact of intelligence, automation and the ecosystem will result in the emerging role of the Platform Player. Organizations that take this route will re-engineer their business models, becoming end-to-end service providers to the customer. The combination of cloud, hyper-automation and data analytics will allow banks to use their data, operations, license and technology to deliver Business Process as a Service propositions. Other models include Product Providers, focused on incremental improvement of services, and Relationship Banks which will re-invent customer relationships and act as a trusted advisor.

Thomas Zink, Research Director at IDC writes in the research, “The finance function is transforming at pace, led in large part by the growing importance of the role of the corporate treasurer, and treasury more broadly – now recognized as an essential change agent for the business. […] With this role change, we are witnessing the transformation of the treasury department into a data-driven, highly automated arbiter, equipped to optimize liquidity and enable future investments, and able to predict and hedge against volatilities in the market better than ever before.”

EMVCo has announced the continued expansion of its Associate Programme, with new organisations joining to engage in the strategic and technical direction of the global body.

2C2P, Adyen, BC Card, Checkout.com, Endeavour Internet Business Solutions, FrenchSys, ICC Solutions, Infinitium, Merchant Advisory Group, Shopify and Wakefern Food Corporation have all joined in the past year. As EMVCo Associates, these organisations will support the process of developing, enhancing and evolving the EMV® Specifications.

“Whether a consumer is using a card, phone or shopping online, EMVCo and the EMV Specifications exist so that secure payment products function globally,” comments Bruce Rutherford, Chair of the EMVCo Executive Committee. “This requires input, guidance and cross-industry collaboration to ensure we collectively support rapidly evolving payment trends. EMVCo welcomes and encourages the ongoing expansion of the Associates Programme, and thanks the continuing commitment from our Associates to shape future specification advancements.”

The EMV Specifications provide a comprehensive technology toolbox for both physical and remote commerce. The EMV Chip Specifications have evolved to include contact, contactless and mobile transactions, as well as EMV QR Codes. EMV 3-D Secure and EMV Secure Remote Commerce aim to deliver consistency and convenience for remote payments. EMV Payment Tokenisation, Consumer Device Cardholder Verification Method and Security Evaluations for Software Based Mobile Payment Solutions help provide additional security for emerging payment methods.

BNP Paribas today announces its strategic partnership with Kantox, a leading fintech specialising in FX risk management solutions.

The agreement enables BNP Paribas and Kantox to jointly offer Kantox’s Dynamic Hedging solution to BNP Paribas’ clients across EMEA. Dynamic Hedging is an innovative software solution developed by Kantox, which allows corporate treasurers to fully automate and streamline FX workflows. The solution will complement the product suite available on Centric, BNP Paribas’ leading digital banking platform.

This partnership strengthens BNP Paribas’ commitment to digital growth and transformation, demonstrating an agile approach which combines the strength of a leading global bank with the latest advances in fintech.

Philippe Gelis, CEO and co-founder at Kantox, said: “We are pleased to jointly offer our award-winning Dynamic Hedging solution to BNP Paribas’ corporate clients. Our solution allows treasurers to automate FX management and leverage micro-hedging to save time and streamline workflows. We believe that our offering, combined with the financial strength of BNP Paribas as a banking partner, is an attractive value proposition for their existing corporate client base.

Xavier Gallant, Co-Head of Corporate Rates, FX and Local Markets Sales EMEA at BNP Paribas, said: “When it comes to managing foreign currency risk, we are seeing a real need for our corporate clients to improve efficiencies in forecasting their future cash flows, formalising hedging practices and optimising execution through automation. BNP Paribas’ partnership with Kantox will offer corporate treasurers in EMEA the opportunity to access a fully automated hedging solution and ultimately improve their treasury processes. We look forward to a successful partnership.”

After a successful re-domiciliation to the European banking union and important efforts in the areas of risk and compliance, Nordea has entered a new phase, focusing further on customer centricity, improved efficiency and development in regulatory matters.

As part of this new phase, Nordea will rationalise its governance and senior leadership structure and remove the combined Deputy CEO and Group COO roles. The final governance and senior leadership structure for the COO operations will now be evaluated and announced later together with the related appointments.

Following the new phase and the removal of the combined Deputy CEO and Group COO roles, it has been agreed that Deputy CEO and Group COO, Torsten Hagen Jørgensen, will leave Nordea. He will step down from Group Executive Management with immediate effect but will be available to support with an orderly transition of his responsibilities. The structure and appointments in the COO area will be announced later.

For many years Torsten Hagen Jørgensen has been instrumental in leading the transformation of Nordea as Deputy CEO and Group COO. Torsten Hagen Jørgensen has held many roles at Nordea during his long career and successfully led multiple areas of responsibility within the Group.    

As part of the new phase, it has also been agreed that Chief People Officer, Karen Tobiasen, will leave Nordea. She will step down from Group Executive Management with immediate effect and the search for a new Chief People Officer will start immediately. Also Karen Tobiasen will be available to support with an orderly transition of her responsibilities.  

Karen Tobiasen has been a driving force in the transformation of Nordea’s culture and all people dimensions. She has inspired the entire workforce to continuous improvement on change and innovation.

President and CEO, Frank Vang-Jensen, and the entire Board of Directors thank both Torsten Hagen Jørgensen and Karen Tobiasen for their dedication and efforts at Nordea and wish both all success in the future.

In line with applicable regulations, Group Chief Legal Officer, Jussi Koskinen is appointed Deputy Managing Director of Nordea Bank Abp for an interim period.

H&M wants to offer customers a truly modern shopping experience that is both flexible and convenient no matter where and how they choose to shop.

Together with Klarna, H&M has now introduced a new unique payment solution in the UK, enabling a frictionless and flexible checkout for customers across all channels. With Pay later, fashion fans who are members of (or join!) H&M’s loyalty program are offered the possibility to shop now and pay later both online and in stores using the H&M app. Invoices are handled within the H&M app where customers can decide how and when they want to pay. 

“Shopping at H&M should be convenient, relevant and inspiring and we are happy to now offer fashion fans in the UK a whole new way of paying their fashion finds. Through the partnership with Klarna, we have developed an H&M-unique payment solution that offers our fans a truly modern shopping experience no matter where and how they choose to shop,” Toni Galli, Country Manager for H&M UK & IE. 

“The foundation of the Klarna and H&M partnership is a commitment to continuously develop smarter, simpler and engaging shopping experiences. We at Klarna are excited to now launch our leading Pay later offering together in the UK, enabling a unique shopping experience for consumers - instore and online,” says Michael Rouse, Chief Commercial Officer at Klarna.

H&M and Klarna plan to launch the new payment solution in a total of 8 markets during 2019 with more markets to follow in 2020. As part of the partnership, H&M and Klarna will continue to develop payment solutions to increase flexibility and convenience even further and make it even easier to shop at H&M, both in physical stores and online. 

InstaReM, a leading global financial payments infrastructure company,has announced that it will now power real-time cross-border payments for the clients of the SBI Remit and SBI Cosmoney, part of one of Asia’s leading payments companies, across select markets.

InstaReM already powers payments for four of the top ten Southeast Asian Banksand leading financial institutions across the globe. This partnership with SBI Remit and SBI Cosmoney helps InstaReM further entrench itself as a leading player in the institutional payments space.

Announcing InstaReM’s partnership with SBI Remit and SBI Cosmoney, Prajit Nanu, co-founder and CEO of InstaReM said,

“We are delighted to be working together with SBI Remit and SBI Cosmoney to power their outward real-time remittances.This relationship further cements InstaReM’s position as a leading provider for real-time payments.With InstaReM, the clients of SBI Remit and SBI Cosmoney will be able to realize faster turnarounds, while being assured of certainty on delivery times and payout amounts.”

Mr. Joe Kim, CEOof SBI Cosmoney, said,

“We are pleased to be partnering with InstaReMin delivering swift, secure and efficient remittance services for our customers.”

Financial institutions across the globe will allocate almost half (48%) of their IT budget to spending on public cloud services in 2020, up from 41% this year and 34% in 2018, according to the results of Refinitiv’s latest research into the use of cloud technology for financial data. The findings are based on a survey of 300 global financial firms across the financial community.

Banks and asset managers are looking to the cloud as an enabling technology to move away from expensive legacy data infrastructure and improve their ability to innovate by applying sophisticated AI based analytics to large and disparate datasets on demand.

The industry’s plans to increase investment in public cloud follows in the wake of successful projects being completed, with three quarters (76%) saying that previous public cloud projects performed better than expected when it came to delivering an immediate cost reduction.  No projects performed worse than expected. Hedge funds reported particularly high success rates in achieving immediate cost savings, with 91% saying that their projects had performed better than expected.

More than half of the industry’s completed cloud projects also delivered better than expected results when it came to speed of implementation and low cost of experimentation, highlighting the innovation dividend the cloud can unlock.

When asked how transformational cloud would be for the sector over the next 5 -10 years, a quarter of respondents (24%) said that the cloud will be transformational, while a further 40% said it would be significant.  Only around a third (36%) described the transformational impact of the technology as minor and none said that it was not at all transformational.

While the survey found firms to be positive about the benefits of the cloud, the journey to the cloud will take longer than expected for many firms as they grapple with the challenges of implementing cloud technology effectively. Estimates for the time to migrate key workloads across front, middle and back office functions increased compared to the responses from a year earlier.

With many banks and asset managers operating globally, the biggest challenge identified by respondents was managing data privacy controls across multiple datasets in different locations, cited by 51% of respondents. 94% of firms also said they thought their business was limiting their use of the cloud in some way because of regulatory concerns.

“The global financial community is increasingly bullish on the potential of the cloud to maintain profitability, deliver an innovation dividend, enhance business resilience and ensure future scalability,” comments Marion Leslie, global head of enterprise front-office propositions at Refinitiv. “We’re entering a more mature phase for cloud adoption in the financial sector, as the industry has completed many successful projects that justify increased investment. Blockers are falling away as the technology evolves and the transformational impact of big data, analytics and artificial intelligence enabled by cloud becomes real and generates increased interest.”

“Challenges remain in using the technology and our research found that the journey to the cloud is taking the industry longer than expected. Using the technology effectively requires new ways of working and new commercial models in order to harness cloud economics effectively. As a heavily regulated sector, the industry is also working through complex data control and compliance issues, which are very different in the cloud to firms’ own infrastructure.”

To download the full report, please visit our website.

Methodology

The survey consisted of telephone interviews with 300 senior figures across buy-side and sell-side financial institutions, in the roles of Chief Technology Officers, Chief Information Officers and Heads of Market Data. It was a global survey, with respondents split equally between North America, Europe and APAC.

The workshop will be all about balancing liquidity—one of the most important considerations for marketplace platforms. The agenda will be covering a variety of topics, from the basic principles of balancing liquidity, to using data science to balance supply and demand on marketplace platforms.

Speaking at the workshop will be: Paul Cook, Growth and Analytics advisor for companies like Hiyacar, Esme Loans, Licklist and Booxscale,  Claas Stüdemann, Head of Operations UK/IE of Helpling and Austin Tasker, Founder of FeedUp.'

Don’t miss out on an evening of valuable insights from our keynote speakers, networking opportunities and, of course, drinks and nibbles. Register here:https://paybase.io/events-workshop-marketplaces-5?utm_source=Event&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=Channelpartner