Corporates world-wide are demanding simplified multi-bank connectivity. To meet this need SAP SE and SWIFT are joining forces to offer treasurers a comprehensive, out-of-the-box integration with financial institutions, connecting to the SWIFT network of more than 11,000 financial institutions worldwide. SAP are now able to offer a complete end-to-end integration from SAPs Digital Core (S/4HANA) & SAP ERP to banks for incoming and outgoing payment processes for both connectivity via direct connection to banks (using the connectivity developed in their old Financial Services Network service) and via their new embedded Alliance Lite2 connection to SWIFT. This leverages SAP’s cloud platform, as figure below shows, and the corporate customer does not need to use additional SWIFT hardware or software.

SAP Multi-Bank Connectivity

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SAP are starting their Multi-Bank Connectivity solution with payments.

Charging

SWIFT and SAP are going to charge separately for the service. Corporates will continue to have to become members of SWIFT because of security constraints that they cannot compromise on, and will be charged for SWIFT usage as before. SAP will charge for the use of their processing and hosting infrastructure, and the SWIFT connectivity plus transaction charges.

Quotes:

• Marc Delbaere, Head of Corporates and Supply Chain, SWIFT believes that, “This is about joining forces and each partner doing what we are best at. Embedding SWIFT is part of our core activity in providing corporates with multi-bank connectivity. Our objective is to lower the barriers of entry that exist for corporates to reach all their banks globally. This integrated solution is going to ease the lives of many corporate treasurers. In the future more and more SWIFT connectivity will be provided through partners.” 
• Christian Mnich, Senior Director, Solution Management Treasury, SAP says  “With this partnership we get the best of both worlds: simplifying bank connectivity for our clients, and providing them with banking communication across multiple banks and countries. The embedded solution allows companies to accelerate project implementations and increase security standards by leveraging the secured shared infrastructure provided by SAP’s cloud platform.”  

Further innovation planned

SAP plans to provide more Treasury related services into its cloud platforms, such as Trading Platforms and Market Data providers. For regulatory reporting (EMIR) there is already a solution in place (Trade repository reporting by Virtusa). This is in addition to SAP Multi-Bank Connectivity.

Planned innovation

Source & Copyright©2017 SAP SE or an SAP affiliate company. All rights reserved

The other impact of the move to embedded cloud services is that SAP are talking about implementing their TMS solution much faster: in a few months or even weeks.

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CTMfile take: The impact of the world’s largest ERP solution provider embedding the world’s largest bank network - SWIFT - into their Multi-Bank Connectivity service will be huge. Some SWIFT service bureau will be marginalised and the aggregator service providers could become less attractive. Also SAP’s retention of the host-to-host bank connectivity is important as it gives corporates the opportunity to optimise their bank connectivity costs.