Trinity, the TMS solution provider’s recent email contained important ‘rule-of-thumb’ advice on which payment channels to use when accessing your banks.

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Payment channels, the alternatives

According to Trinity, the payment channels open to corporates are:

• EBICS communication channel:
  • This channel is already supported by many international transaction banks and is free of charge. The number of banks that offer this channel is growing fast. Setting up a connection with banks that support EBICS is relatively easy.
• H2H (Host to Host) connections:
  • This is an individual connection with a bank. H2H connections are bank-specific. Setting up a H2H connection is a bank specific project.
• Access to the SWIFT network:
  • Once the access to the SWIFT is in place, Trinity points out that “corporate treasury departments need to implement and test connections per bank which is a straightforward process. 
  • They have found that obtaining access to the SWIFT network can cost a bit more, but offers the advantage of scalability. 

Trinity points out that whatever combination of channels corporates use, corporate treasury departments still need payment software which allows them to read the incoming bank statements and create and send payment files in a secure way.

Strategic considerations
The choice of payment channels depends on various factors. For instance, a company with 20 banks, of which 16 can be connected via EBICS, would probably connect the remaining 4 via separate H2H-connections as this is probably more cost-efficient than setting up a SWIFT connection. Alternatively, a company with more than 20 banks of which only 5 can be connected via EBICS, will probably benefit more from a SWIFT solution.