Bank of America Merrill Lynch has announced that a new payments capability is available on the CashPro® Online, the company’s worldwide banking portal. Corporate and government clients of all sizes utilizing CashPro can now transact with low-value cross-currency payments, and realize reduced costs and improved efficiency through their CashPro Payments module. The new capability, launched in February this year, allows CashPro users to make low-value payments into 29 countries. (Also see.)

“We’re pleased to add this new capability to CashPro Payments and extend the available options that clients have to initiate their cross-border low-value payments,” said Ather Williams, head of Global Payments and Global Transaction Services (GTS) Strategy. “Companies, governments or institutions that send low-value payments to international payees now have the convenience of making those transactions through the same portal they use to initiate wire transfers, make domestic payments, view their cash positions and run reports.”

Initiating payments

Clients can now make their low-value cross-currency payments from whichever channel best suits their needs – either our online portal or through file delivery. 

CashPro Payments also offers clients the option to initiate cross-border ACH payments from a number of currencies. For example, U.S. ACH payments can be made from accounts in Australian dollar, Canadian dollar, euro, pound sterling, as well as other funding currencies, thus avoiding the necessity to operate a U.S. account.

Making recurring payments

With the new functionality, CashPro Payments allows companies to make recurring low-value cross-currency payments that are either business-to-business or business-to-consumer. 

• business-to-consumer payments can include:  pension or salary payments, insurance claims payouts, sales incentives or commissions, rebates, royalties, or dividend distributions.
• business-to-business payments can include:  vendor and utility payments, marketing, advertising or legal payments, consulting and outsourcing expenses.

Benefits

BofA Merrill claim that the benefits of using CashPro Payments for low-value cross-currency payments include:

• improved satisfaction of the payees.
• by replacing checks, payees receive their funds in a more secure electronic environment.
• by replacing wire payments, payees avoid the lifting fees associated with correspondent banks.
• improved accuracy of cash flow forecasting.
• reduced costs as a result of replacing check and wire payments, both of which incur fees or processing costs.
• eliminating the need for local currency accounts to support international payments.
• lower exposure to potential losses associated with check fraud.
• improved straight-through-processing rates, resulting in reduced costs associated with investigating non-receipt of funds.

(N.B. Clients may continue to use CashPro Connect, the BofA Merrill file-based channel, to initiate domestic and cross-currency payments.)