Kyriba

Commentary

Technology is changing the way many businesses work: with online commerce, many traditionally B2B businesses are moving to B2C. Logistics and supply chains are being transformed. Ride hailing and food delivery services operate real time payment systems. Assets we used to buy are increasingly available as a service, often linked to the internet of things.

Where are our banks in this turmoil? And how are treasurers adapting? We wanted to get a first view. Judging by the response we received, we are clearly not alone in being very interested.

This report is long – even the summary takes several pages, and it does not capture all the nuances. It is well worth reading the detail – it clearly lays out the challenges treasurers are facing.

Business transformation

For the time being, treasurers are adopting a wait-and-see approach to business changes. When the business moves to B2C, or becomes a full asset as a service enterprise, treasury will adapt accordingly. In the meantime, treasurers see no need to get ahead of the business, or even necessarily be a change agent.

On the other hand, CXC members who are in the new, online enabled industries are, of necessity, proving to be early adopters of the new technologies.

Communicating with banks

Over the years, centralised global and regional treasury management has been enabled by online banking tools with balance reporting, remote account management and payment initiation.

This has brought enormous benefits to treasury management. But it is not perfect:

• Mostly, the data is not real time. It is often yesterday’s balance and transactions
• There are many different tools: host to host, e-banking systems, SWIFT reporting, APIs
• Security protocols remain a conce

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Commentary

Cryptocurrency, digital wallets, virtual everything – there is a huge amount of change. China has been at the forefront of a lot of digital trends, partly due to the fact it had an antiquated banking system which has been thoroughly modernised, and partly because the explosion of internet shopping in the country required a digital payments solution. This is a challenge when there are no credit cards. 

This report is based on a Treasury peer Call which explored how this is affecting members’ companies, and how they are adapting to this brave new, digital, world.

• Most participants are accepting payment using WeChat Pay and Alipay. None is using these tools to make corporate payments.
• The collections process using these tools is efficient and effective: you work with a third party (usually accessed via a banking provider), who will transfer the funds to your account the following day. One participant did an RFP, with two Chinese and two foreign banks, and found the service was identical – though pricing was different, and not transparent.
• There was no mention of billbacks, the excessively high fees and acquirors which blight the use of credit cards in other countries
• The one complaint all participants had was the difficulty linking this process to internal systems, for the reconciliation of receipts or for compliance purposes in terms of identifying the source of cash. The third party companies do provide detailed lists of payors, but it can be difficult to upload these into the ERP system.
• There was a lot of discussion about....please sign in to continue