You’ve spent years developing your pooling and sweeping liquidity management structure. It is working fine, but then you realise that you need to stop a particular sweep today and then re-start in three days time. But to do this previously required an email or a call to your bank’s customer service teams, wait for 1-2 days for them to carry it out, and then to check they had actually carried it out. No longer. Now with Citi’s new application clients can do it themselves directly.

CitiDirect BE® Cash Concentration

Citi has launched a new global liquidity solution, CitiDirect BE® Cash Concentration, which allows clients to digitally manage their cash pooling structures through Citi’s online treasury management tool which gives clients an online view in the dashboard of their cash concentration structures and make changes, e.g.

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Development

Citi partnered with several clients in developing the new user-friendly functionality to ensure that it met their needs. Brandon Walker, Treasury Manager of Yum! Brands, Inc. commented: “Citi’s digital cash concentration tool is both intuitive and rich with functionality.  It gives us access to all the information and options available in the cash concentration solution, all in one system and in a very simple and clear way.”

Functionality

The new functionality is part of the CitiDirect platform, so many clients will be familiar with using CitiDirect for their balance, transaction reports and payments, and will just go to this new module which allows them to:

• Look at the liquidity structures across their entities and at Citi branches (Currently limited to the liquidity structures held on Citi accounts)
• Edit accounts, e.g. switch sweeps on or off
• Change interest re-allocation rates
• Update SWIFT Account Statement[ It is not limited to Swift only, but applies across a host of statement types] message transaction descriptions for their TMS or accounting systems
• Update parameters such as transfer pricing, inter-account lending limits
• Delete accounts.

Such changes, most of which are minor routine changes and don’t alter the structure of the liquidity solution, can be made in a few minutes.

However, Citi is well aware of the dangers to their client’s liquidity structures from misusing such a module. Mark Smith, Global Head of Liquidity Management Services, Treasury and Trade Solutions, Citi Smith commented that “The pooling and sweeping liquidity structures that our clients have can be quite complex. If something goes wrong in a liquidity structure, it can be a real problem to untangle. So we provide a number of controlled checkpoints, a controlled framework around the structure, for example, client approval and change management.   This means that our clients only change what they need to change, rather than accidentally changing something else.”

Future development

Smith also commented that “The launch of this solution further builds upon Citi’s long commitment to creating innovative tools to provide for our clients’ financial needs.  The intuitive portal will provide transparency as well as giving clients’ direct control over their liquidity structures. Treasurers can now make more informed and faster funding decisions around the globe.”

He continued, “The most beneficial impact of the new module is that: 1) it saves the client’s time and speeds up the whole liquidity management process, and 2) enables clients to input forward changes needed in the coming days rather than wait until the day itself.”

Over the coming months Citi plan to enhance the module by adding functionality to:

• Add new accounts to the structure
• Send/receive messages to/from via API links to corporate treasury workstations or treasury management systems, e.g. a change the notional volumes involved in the sweep tomorrow, can be made directly on the TMS rather than needing to go into Citi Direct.

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CTMfile take: This key development is an important example of how cash and treasury systems and solutions are being integrated at all levels, in many different ways to improve corporate treasury department performance.