Over the last few weeks there have been several announcements from leading cash management banks about various projects and new initiatives, including:

• HSBC appoints new head of Latin America payments and cash management - Carlos Gonzalez Fillad who will be the regional head of Latin America for the group’s PCM

• Deutsche Bank has created a Global Solutions function which headed by Shahrokh Moinian, previously Head of TF/CMC for the Americas. Based in Frankfurt. Moinian will report to Michael Spiegel, Head of TF/CMC. TF/CMC Global Solutions will focus on accelerating business growth by systematically tailoring and replicating solutions across target industries and geographies, focusing on large corporate clients 

• Citi has expanded their Chinese their existing range of onshore and offshore local currency Chinese bond indices with the introduction of a Chinese government and policy bank bond index. In the Citi dim sum (offshore CNY) bond index the products’ assets under management have nearly quadrupled in the last year.
• Westpac has been awarded a general derivatives licence by the China Banking Regulatory Commission. They are the third to be awarded such a licence

• Citi have launched (on a test basis) a new mobile banking application that allows retail customers to check their account balance and any recent transactions without logging into their account. (Unlikely that this facility will be made available to corporate treasurers, as concerns have been raised about potential security issues around accessing account details without logging in.)