Poll Results: Use of APIs in Corporate Treasury

CXC Lightning Poll: Use of APIs in Corporate Treasury

In February 2024, we asked 133 corporate treasury members to indicate the current status of API usage in their corporate treasury. Here are the mini survey results:

Since this poll was completed we have produced a report based on the experiences of treasurers who have implemented APIs - Read the commentary here.

Comments:

Using APIs

• We are using APIs and also 2. We are planning to use APIs - where is possible of if the counterparty enhances its capability
• We have just completed API set up with one of the banks, yet to be used.We fall into the middle of the 1st/2nd situation.
• Our banks have offered APIs for years, but integration into our TMS (Kyriba) has been painfully slow
• (one of our company OKRs is: "API first and developer centric")
• We are using api's and willing to use more of them
• I know we are using API from IT perspective and for Bloomberg but some or our firewalls even prevent me using the simplest way for Bloomberg..Currently we are in RfP for a TMS and the API are very important
• I’m using APIs primarily for FX rates in my Python codes for FX trading but also for other purposes.

Planning to use APIs

• We are planning to use API’s for digital collection and will also possibly look at API for statements in connection with another project.Would be interesting to know if other corporates see API as a pure banking product (as we do) or an IT product that IT Procurement owns.
• We are planning to use APIs. We have a few projects scoped out already.
• As I understand it is currently more that banking side/banks required to do some homework (standardization) required as a prerequisite. From a corporate perspective the interest to use API’s is perhaps a bit higher …
• with strict controls.
• To be honest, it will be 2 to 4. We’re not using APIs at the moment. We are highly interested in using an API if we could connect directly to Swift. And we would use an API if I could connect all of my banks with this single API. To onboard each single API of the banks will bring in a huge complexity as each API / Bank provides different features
• . Implementation of an API needs to be done on a software level. So the software provider needs to do such implementation.For our current status, we are connected to banks using Swift. Is it nice and the best? No, but it works for all banks and has a certain reliability and brings in standards.
• Here are a few questions I have on my side :
  • How complicated / easy is it to integrate into the TMS and / or company ERP  ?
  • Does anyone use that for payments ? (for now it seems it is mainly for reporting purposes) ?
  • Are there some specific banks that are very good and others very bad ?
  • How does the cost model work : number of requests as a package or pay per request ? How does that compare to SWIFT from a cost perspective ?
  • Are companies using API happy about it or what would need to be improved ? Is it as good as what we are being told in general ?
• The answer for [redacted] is 2, but we are on our way to1, hopefully within a couple of months. The challenge is the conversion of formats from the source to destination
• We are planning on using API in the near future and at my last company we used ApI with about 5-10 banks domestic and international

Interested but no action to date

• Unfortunately, we are a solid 3... :(
• Don't have anyone within my team with such expertise and its way down in the list of priorities
• I would say we balance between 3 and 4 – part of the treasury organization interested but still to build business case on relevancy, cost/benefit analysis
• for getting SCF data from funders
• We are really interested in APIs. We are looking to see how we can integrate them into our treasury landscape and automate as many of our processes as possible
• Looking into it, resources always a challenge
• currently only using SFTP interfaces for treasury
• The reason being still the lagging behind of TMS providers, although we start to see more traction now and hope to still benefit from this development at some point

Not interested / not relevant

• Its an interesting topic and perhaps much relevance in the future, but not now yet
• I am finding that APIs are a ‘fad’ and being pushed by banks and tech companies. I don’t see much benefit of them over and above the current connectivity methods
• 5. i don't know enough on the topic to reliably state whether or not we are or not using
• We process invoices and reconcile them with the payments on Oracle NetSuite. NS has been used within the accounting function and we do not have any treasury related APIs currently. Considering the implementation and maintenance costs of such products and the daily volume of our B2B natured business, it is not within our scope at the moment