The launch of SAP’s Financial Services Network has been slower than expected, but it is now making visible progress:

• Citi now have a live link to a corporate (no details yet)
• DBS Bank and SAP have announced that DBS has partnered with SAP to make it easier for businesses to connect their treasury and payment systems with the bank.

Recent survey

In a recent survey commissioned by SAP, CFOs and corporate treasurers indicated that responding to the challenges of the daily activities of treasury and financial operations is critical. They wanted not only better risk management and enhanced funding options in response to the complex global environment, but also better and more integrated solutions to achieve their goals. This meant seamless connectivity solutions with their banks to enable them to more effectively execute payments and other financial services.

SAP FSN

SAP claim that FSN meets this need as:

• it does away with the current industry practice today where corporates typically link their systems to their bank through a proprietary host to host connection
• provides a standardised integration capability between bank and customer
• the standardised interface simplifies the client onboarding process from the industry average of three to six months to as little as a few weeks. 

Said Lum Yin Fong, Global Head of Product Management, Global Transaction Services, DBS, “At DBS, we constantly look at how we can leverage technology to simplify banking for our customers. Trailblazing the use of SAP FSN underlines this effort. In this competitive business landscape, CFOs and corporate treasurers want a seamless, integrated connection with their banks that automates financial transactions and provides them with visibility of their cashflow. With FSN, we are able to provide straight through processing, operating efficiencies, as well as a more streamlined onboarding process for our corporate clients.”

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CTMfile take: The big issues with FSN are: 1) can SAP roll out FSN fast enough to have an impact, and 2) how will they work with and connect to SWIFT, AND to the other networks.