132 finance and professionals around the globe were asked by FIS how they are navigating through their payments and bank connectivity challenges. They reported that:

• Their key challenges in payment projects were:
  • Improving control is the top challenge or key driver for a payments project
  • Preventing payment fraud: corporate treasurers are relying on system providers to reduce the likelihood of a cyber-attack or any other fraudulent event
  • Ensuring cash visibility 
  • Adding real-time payments
  • Dealing with too many banks and accounts
• Main solutions adopted were:
  • Payments centralization: a critical key to overcoming payments challenges
  • Payments standardization =  increased control and payment fraud reduction
  • Streamlining bank relationships and accounts to reduce complexity and costs
  • Reducing the number of payment formats to minimize complexity
  • Bank connectivity models: Connecting via an eBanking platform is still the most popular method, followed by Host-to-Host and SWIFTNet
  • A new channel to the banks emerging: Open APIs which can be used for real-time/faster payments
  • Real-time transaction processing is viewed as both an added convenience and control for treasurers.

Unsurprisingly, FIS proposed that the solution to simplifying the global payments journey is to install their payments factory and managed bank connectivity solutions.

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CTMfile take: No surprises here, but some interesting nuances in full report.