SEPA 2.0: Get back to your real job of make your company more financially efficient
by Kylene Casanova
A recent survey by Reval of corporate treasury departments in 160 finance professionals showed that 93% of respondents have strategic payments initiatives on their agendas for this year, but only 18 percent are implementing payment factories or shared service centres. This survey reflects the position of most corporate treasury departments: they are recovering from the rush to be compliant with SEPA standards and systems. Now this is over, corporate treasurers are getting back to their real job of helping to make their company/group more financially efficient and cost-effective.
The main projects in the relatively mature European cash management market vary significantly between companies and corporate treasury departments, depending on their starting positions. Projects include:
- continuing regulatory compliance including EMIR, Dodd-Frank,and FATCA; however, the emphasis seems to have changed with more waiting and seeing what is absolutely essential before major investments are made
- setting up a pan-European payment factory as the next stage in exploiting the potential improvements from SEPA by centralising first payments and then collections
- introducing an in-house bank and netting to develop a cash management and payment hub
- extend in XML formats to other types of payments in SEPA countries: cross-border, payrolls, tax payments, high-value payments
- deploying XML formats for all types of payments in all geographies (non-SEPA European countries, Asia and America), making this format a universal standard for payables all over the world.
- extending the XML formats to local collection methods (i.e., Ricevuta Bancaria (RIBA) in Italy, Lettres de Change relevé (LCR) in France)
- extending the use of XML reporting format for the account statements (CAMT053 / CAMT052) to payables and receivables wherever possible to enable streamlined reconciliation processing using the increased information carried with each payment/collection
- preparing to use the new MYBANK e-mandates in the SDD scheme to be able to centralise mandate management
- rationalising their bank account and cash pooling arrangements
- expanding multi-bank connectivity via SWIFT, their TMS supplier or via new solutions like Global EBICS from BNP Paribas.
The impact of SEPA is now really starting to go world-wide as companies introduce the SEPA best practices and standards globally.
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