Trésorier/Treasurer magazine - N°99 - Nov/Dec/Jan 2018 - 24

INNOVATIVE
PAYMENTS SOLUTION

LE MAGAZINE DU TRESORIER / TREASURER MAGAZINE

N°99

- NOV /

DEC / JAN 2018

Transforming the future
of cross-border payments

The world of international payments is changing. The pace of
innovation has increased and the payments ecosystem is expanding at an exponential rate. Customers demand an international
payments service that is closer in nature to that of domestic and
SEPA payments, and innovative competitors are moving up the
payments value chain to challenge the traditional correspondent
banking model. At the same time, regulation continues to increase
in both complexity and stringency across the globe and the cost of
compliance is at an all-time high.

In such a quickly evolving landscape, banks have to keep
up with the pace of change and prepare for the future in
order to remain competitive. In the traditional correspondent banking model, payments are slow and can
take multiple days to complete. Furthermore, there is no
transparency on costs, on time (when the payment will
be received) and no confirmation of credit.
The industry's objective is to deliver a better customer
payment experience. As a result, a group of banks who
are working together to address this challenge engaged
with us under the umbrella of an initiative called SWIFT
global payments innovation (gpi). The aim of this
solution is to make cross-border payments faster, more
transparent, and traceable.

Understanding the challenges of corporates
Close collaboration with corporates has been an essential part of our process to ensure that any solutions
developed address the very specific challenges that
corporates experience with cross border payments.
Working closely with treasury associations such as the
Luxembourg Association of Corporate Treasurers (ATEL)
and in multiple workshops held with corporates, several
high priority concerns/requirements were identified:
- Credit confirmation and timing: Same-day or faster
payments are important, as is confirmation of the
payment reaching the beneficiary account.
- Traceability of payment: Corporates require the ability to track the progress and status of cross-border
payments.

Close collaboration with
corporates has been an essential
part of our process to ensure that
any solutions developed address
the very specific challenges that
corporates experience with cross
border payments.

- STP and integration: Any payments tracker or related
gpi service would need to be delivered as an integral
element of their existing treasury and payments
infrastructure.
- Quality and completeness of remittance data: improvement is needed to ease automated reconciliation of
payments with invoices.
- Fee transparency, including FX costs: Fees levied by
correspondent banks are often unpredictable and
can create reconciliation problems as well as additional payment claims from the beneficiary when the full
amount is not received. This problem is exacerbated
by FX conversions.
- Rejections and investigations: Treasurers and finance
managers have little visibility of when and why a
payment has been rejected, and the investigation
process can be time-consuming.
Many corporate treasurers will be familiar with the
above list of challenges. Without being exhaustive, the
list provided a clear indication for the development of
our new initiative.
"The gpi is beginning to solve an issue that the corporate
treasury community has demanded to be changed
for years. We therefore endorse and encourage your
company to bring this to fruition" comments Francois
Masquelier, ATEL Chairman & EACT Vice-Chairman.

Table des matières de la publication Trésorier/Treasurer magazine - N°99 - Nov/Dec/Jan 2018