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Nearly every company doing business beyond its own borders faces the challenge of cost-effectively managing currency risk, and each year corporations incur billions of dollars in currencyrelated losses due to global currency volatility. Even...

Nearly every company doing business beyond its own borders faces the challenge of cost-effectively managing currency risk, and each year corporations incur billions of dollars in currencyrelated losses due to global currency volatility. Even small organizations with modest international operations can be impacted by currency exposures if treasury fails to effectively manage foreign exchange (FX). In this eBook you will be introduced to three common manual foreign exchange profiles and examine anonymous case studies of how a company from each profile type was able to gain greater insight into currency data and exposure, improve workflows, increase overall efficiencies and withstand currency headwinds — all by modernizing and automating their FX processes. In many cases, these losses are attributable to manual, spreadsheet-based currency risk management programs and processes, which are vulnerable to human error and faulty hedging strategies — strategies that hinge on inadequate or incomplete data. Ongoing FX volatility, lack of access to accurate and timely data, and real time responsiveness to exposure and market risk changes put demands on organizations to embrace fully-automated FX risk programs. Regardless of the sophistication or complexity of an organization, every corporation can benefit from automated FX risk management. This is true even for larger or more sophisticated companies already utilizing general treasury software or trading platforms. In fact, the automating FX risk management can enhance the value of a trading platform, ERP(s) and other technologies. What Does Automating FX Mean? Automation involves modernizing procedures by systematizing each step of a process, eliminating the need for manual intervention along the way. Within an FX risk management program, this may include automating processes for the data collection exposure consolidation, calculation and analysis, as well as hedge recommendation. Automation also involves seamlessly integrating multiple systems, including ERPs, trading platforms and market data providers to ensure exposures are aggregated easily and automatically with the latest technology, like APIs. At Kyrbia, we advise corporations to consider three types of FX automation when looking to enhance their FX risk management programs Data Transfer Automation to optimize the datagathering portion of FX risk management, which ensures human “touchpoints” are minimized and the potential for error is reduced. Workflow Automation to identify and establish exposure benchmarks across the enterprise, ensuring consistency and eliminating currency surprises. Process Automation to intoduce complete, end-toend modernization to ensure errors are mitigated, efficiencies are maximized and risk is eliminated. The Benefits of Automating FX Although automating FX may sound intimidating, by working with the right technology and fintech provider, it can often be completed easily and quickly with quick-strike benefits. Automation eliminates the need for manual intervention, reducing the potential for costly human errors. Diminishing the need for manual involvement frees treasury professionals from having to gather data from multiple sources, giving them more time to analyze information, track exposure trends and proactively seek out other opportunities to eliminate risk. Automation transforms how treasury professionals are perceived within an organization, allowing them to be seen as resources in strategic planning. By automating FX, organizations also gain: Improved efficiency Significant time savings Increased FX controls Greater insights into FX exposures Reduced currency impacts to earnings Optimized FX risk management costs Managed impacts from FX risk Leveraging technology allows organizations to perform risk analytics on command, becoming less dependent on financial institutions or outsourced service providers. This provides the most flexibility, visibility, and control over an FX program while not losing time on external dependencies. By dividing the automation of foreign exchange management into three distinct profiles, we can better examine where companies stand with their current FX programs and determine what steps they need to take to achievefull automation. These three profiles are broken out by companies looking to expedite processes, create flexible & adaptable workflows, and enrich data intelligence to optimize FX risk management programs. Expedite: The “expedite” category describes corporations that are interested in incrementally improving their existing FX management programs through efficient data processing. Generally, companies that fit this profile type rely on manual processes that are vulnerable to errors. The CFO may be interested in transitioning away from a spreadsheet-reliant program and looking to automate data aggregation and facilitate in-depth exposure analyses. Adapt: Global organizations have dynamically changing exposure & risk profiles within a continuously changing foreign currency market. Organic growth, acquisitions, and restructurings can leave hedge programs frequently chasing down issues if the FX risk management program is not designed to quickly “adapt” to evolving conditions. When it comes to FX, chasing down issues ultimately puts the organization at higher risk of ineffective risk mitigation decision and negative P&L impacts. Enrich: The “enrich” category describes highly-complex organizations seeking to take advantage of efficient processes by shifting efforts to more strategic analysis. Companies in this category have optimized the blocking and tackling of operating an FX risk management program, and are now ready to leverage automation to improve data inputs and risk forecast assumptions. Hedge programs will maximize effectiveness the more hedge decisions accurately align with actual business activity. Editor’s Note Companies in each one of these profile types have distinctly different challenges and operate at varying levels of sophistication, but they all share a common trait: the need to automate their FX programs. Three Corporate Profiles, Three Automation Success Stories Every corporate environment offers unique challenges, and the following anonymous case studies illustrate how automated workflows can enhance a company’s FX program — regardless of the inherent complexities. The specifics for each company in this eBook vary— some used FX trading platforms or had previouslyestablished in-house banks. Regardless of the specifics, after modernizing their programs, each organization saw nearimmediate quantifiable results, including improved operational efficiencies, time savings, reduced expenses and reductions in currency-related risks. 1. Expedite: A $6 Billion Global Electronics Manufacturer Why They Automated The company relied on a manual, forecast-based, legacy balance sheet FX program requiring treasury specialists to gather spreadsheets every month from 30 entities around the globe. They consolidated the forecasts, uploading and executing the appropriate trades manually. This process took four days in total (two days for data consolidation; two for currency hedging), requiring additional steps, touchpoints and manual calculations along the way – all of which amplified the potential for human error. Solution The company looked for a solution to help them design an automated program. Kyriba’s Balance Sheet FX solution offered the cutting-edge SaaS technology and back-end support needed to complement their existing forecasting processes. With Kyriba, their new FX solution enabled a streamlined data aggregation process and initial exposure analysis. This, in turn, supported the development of an end-to-end, automated workflow, which helped the FX team improve their analysis and adjustment process. The team aggregated data for all entities at a corporate level and then executed trades and hedge accounting with a seamless integrated trade execution portal. By using Kyriba for FX risk management, treasury could select what to trade and the trades would immediately be processed. This eliminated unnecessary steps while adding more rigid controls, reducing the likelihood of human error causing something to go wrong during the trade process. The time savings and assurances that processing errors are reduced allow the company to spend more energy on strategic analysis. Outcome Kyriba significantly improved the data aggregation and exposure calculation processes, but seeing the trend analytics and having the ability to compare datasets in the system were also vital. With their new FX risk management solution, treasurers could quickly break down exposures – by entity –and identify what drove the changes while drilling into specific accounts. This was a monumental change compared to their manual processes which did not allow for this advanced degree of reporting; nor did it offer the granular details they needed. Automation saved time and reduced the potential for error. With the click of a button, trades were moved from one system to the next. Treasury no longer needed to open different files, copy, paste and upload separately. This saved significant transaction time, which amounted to many hours saved each month due to the frequency of trades. Additional Benefits The modernized process gave the FX team more time to analyze data and identify trends. Better still, the entire process could be completed in less than a day compared to the manual process, which took about four days to complete. FX professionals could make daily adjustments in exposures, enabling them to immediately identify if – and where – the forecast was off and how to best align currency hedges. The treasury team could also lower the exposure hedge threshold while expanding the number of currency pairs tracked and traded. This helped improve the data collection to hedge execution process by 60 percent. The treasury team lowered corporate hedge thresholds to less than $200,000. 2. Adapt: A $15 Billion Consumer Goods Company Why They Automated With most of the treasury department’s efforts spent manually collecting error-prone data, company decision-makers realized they needed to upgrade their treasury infrastructure. Gathering balance sheet data alone required tapping into 38 different systems in a legacy ERP environment. This antiquated process limited opportunities for the team to focus on data analysis and risk mitigation. These issues were compounded because the company was acquiring another, smaller company at the same time. Executives tasked the FX team from the smaller company – which was already resource-challenged – with managing the postacquisition currency program. The post-acquisition balance sheet program was only hedging one-off intercompany loans and FX trades were executed over the phone. Rolling and settling hedges required constant manual intervention. Additionally, FX hedges in spreadsheets (managed by multiple employees) were an ongoing headache because the cost of wrong-way trades or over/under hedging was high. Cohesive, end-to-end automation was needed to improve efficiencies. Solution Executives recognized the need for an automated program, eliminating the risk of manual errors. The company introduced a customized backbone treasury infrastructure that drew on best practices and offered various treasury technology solutions, including a currency analytics solution, a TMS and a trading platform. For its balance sheet program, the entire hedging process was automated – including weekly collections of exposure data from local business units, ERP systems, spreadsheet uploads and user inputs. Once balances were collected, the team analyzed exposures to determine the external hedging needs. These were executed using an automated trading platform and housed in the new treasury workstation. Kyriba was chosen not only as their TMS, but the company chose its Balance Sheet FX solution to be used as a centralized FX risk center, facilitating automated data collection, exposure calculations and hedge recommendations through technology-enabled automation with the ERP systems, Kyriba TMS and trade executive portal. Within Balance Sheet FX, the team had visibility into individual entities and profit center details. Data was sourced from 38 legacy ERP systems via a weekly template (from 25 local business units) and SAP automatically pushed the data to Kyriba. Outstanding hedges were automatically transferred and uploaded to display net exposure. Kyriba then created recommended hedge actions based on the corporate policy and generated trades netted at the corporate level for all exposure balances. Trades were sent (via direct automation) for execution. Confirms were sent back to Kyriba for automated entity-hedge allocation and reconciliation.When the companies acquisition closed, Kyriba provided a strong FX risk management framework that made it easy to integrate the new entities. Rather than taking months to work with new entities to gather exposure data and educate new employees, the company could quickly guide entities in how to adopt FX processes and follow policies. Outcome By automating, the company revented its treasury infrastructure from the ground up. The transformation took place at the same time the small treasury team managed its day-to-day responsibilities – while the company executed six acquisitions and four divestitures. Additional Benefits The new workflow significantly reduced cumulative FX transaction net losses from$88 million to less than $2 million. The notional size of the balance sheet hedging program increased from $800 million to $2 billion. Hedge accounting documentation now saves the company $120,000 per year thanks to consolidating technology platforms. Trading fees have been reduced by more than $1.3 million in 12 months. 3. Enrich: An $8 Billion Specialty Food Company Why They Automated The company originally relied on a non-formalized, manual cash flow exposure forecasting process – one that was completed ad hoc, using numerous spreadsheets and a variety of touchpoints. Data collection was inconsistent, calculations were completed manually and the potential for error was high. Across the business and reporting structures, many currency pairings were complex and represented significant risk. Reviewing spreadsheets and formulas for each forecast period was resource-intensive, requiring the treasury team to manually review each submission. Additionally, comprehensive management reporting was limited, despite the amount of time devoted to the task. Solution Prior to evaluating FX technology to address their needs, the company conducted an inventory of necessary data required to support a more formalized process and quarterly hedging cycle. The goal was to ensure – when an opportunity to hedge was identified, or the business required a hedge – the team had all the necessary data to act quickly. Once the inventory was finalized, they sought out technology that would further enhance their workflow. The company’s cash flow forecasts were integrated with Kyriba’s Balance Sheet FX reporting reflecting existing hedges, creating an initial view of net exposure by entity. After reviewing the exposure and making desired adjustments and edits, the team executed a decision process in Kyriba to recommend hedges at an entity level (applying the company’s policy-defined threshold, target ratios and level of materiality, creating a report that allocates decisions by entity, currency pair and account group). Kyriba then created trade recommendations for the company’s in-house bank, including internal and external trades, displayed within the application for review. Once recommended trades were approved, the system generated a report of external trades which are sent automatically to an integrated trade execution portal. Kyriba then received the trade confirms, allocating them back to individual entities. Outcome The new workflow empowered the company to standardize a process with currency pairs, exposure types, geographical details and entity information. With corporate-mandated standardization in place, the implementation facilitated improved reporting with complete flexibility supporting individual user-defined views. This proved to be a significant time-saver, enabling the treasury team to focus on analyzing the accuracy of the forecasts, which helped eliminate nearly all calculation errors. Additional Benefits The ability to segregate and analyze specific data sets significantly reduces the time spent on reporting. Previously, it took at least three days (per quarter) to complete; now the process takes less than six hours (including collecting and uploading data and completing board presentations). The company has seen a 50 percent increase in participation in the forecasting process. Realized increased flexibility in the reporting. The company’s new workflow offers more details on all proposed actions. The increased collaboration and visibility allowed the team to add four new entity currency pair combinations to its existing hedge program. There has also been a 50 percent improvement in corporate target hedge ratios. Conclusion Before automating, each company profiled had the potential to endure significant losses (due to human error and faulty, incomplete data). After automating, each organization – regardless of its size and complexity – saw near-immediate benefits. Most importantly, each experienced a reduction in FX-related losses, managed impact from volatility and a substantial decrease in unmanaged FX currency risk. Kyriba is committed to helping organizations improve the impact currency exposure has on corporate financial results by offering best-in-class technology and services. With Kyriba, organizations can reduce risk, reduce costs and streamline processes. Kyriba facilitates end-to-end automation, which includes direct ERP data extraction and aggregation, forecast consolidation, exposure and risk analysis generation and automated risk transfer and trade execution connectivity to banking portals and trading platforms using state-of-the-art, highly-secure SaaS solutions. If your organization is dependent on a sluggish, error-prone manual FX program, you should know adopting an end-to-end, fully-automated currency risk management program can help you achieve the kind of benefits detailed in this eBook. Kyriba has helped leading multinationals and small and mid-size companies with FX exposure, to successfully transition from manual FX programs to modernized, cost-effective programs. Fully automating a FX risk management program – which entails modernizing data collection, exposure consolidation, calculation and analysis, as well as hedging recommendations – ensures an organization is operating in step with current FX best practices. Learn how to employ best-practice automation and advanced FX analytics by reaching out to [email protected]

The lack of payment messaging standards around the globe has been a major issue for payment factory or payment hub modernization. The absence of standards has resulted in expensive cross-border payments, insufficient transparency, increased...

The lack of payment messaging standards around the globe has been a major issue for payment factory or payment hub modernization. The absence of standards has resulted in expensive cross-border payments, insufficient transparency, increased fraud, and heightened security risks. Many companies have allocated extensive resources to develop local formats, yet still face a complexity that prevents them from harmonizing end-to-end processes, including payments validation and data reconciliation, for domestic and international transfers. Over the years, the adoption of the 2009 version of the ISO 20022-based XML messaging standard has represented great progress. It is considered a mature format that is important for corporate payments globally. Nevertheless, companies and banks are still spending a lot of time and money supporting and maintaining local legacy formats–or even worse, proprietary formats–that pose maintenance challenges on a daily basis. Fortunately, under the joint effort of SWIFT, the European Policy Center (EPC), as well as many banks and corporations, the 2019 version of the ISO 20022-based XML messaging standard could be the light at the end of the tunnel. What’s New in the Latest Version of the ISO 20022 XML? ISO 20022, first introduced in 2004, is a messaging standard that establishes a common digital language for financial data worldwide. While SWIFT has started the migration towards ISO 20022 XML messages, the standard is widely used beyond SWIFT services. Currently, most real-time payment systems are using ISO 20022, and the standard has been used for more than 10 years for SEPA Credit Transfer and Direct Debit. Additionally, ISO 20022 is used for invoicing, investment fund orders, and foreign exchange activities. ISO 20022 contains many messages and it also has yearly releases. For instance, ISO 20022 release 2009 contains the pain.001.001.03 message, the most commonly used messaging format for payment initiation. In ISO 20022 release 2019, which is the latest version, the same message has been upgraded to version 09, pain.001.001.09. When it gets adopted by a majority of organizations, the 2019 version of the ISO 20022-based XML messaging standard will allow for speedy payment transactions, in part because it would eliminate complex layers of legacy payment codes. The new version provides more detailed, higher quality data, enabling better reporting, enhancing security procedures, and driving innovation by allowing financial institutions to analyze customer behaviors and design products that better fit their needs. By November 2025, SWIFT messages will be fully transitioned to XML for interbank settlements. For this migration, most banks will change their infrastructure and therefore will push their corporate clients to adopt the 2019 version of the ISO 20022 XML over other local standards for payments, such as DTAZV in Germany and AFB320 in France. The process has already started in Switzerland, where SIX is promoting this format as the new Swiss standard and Credit Suisse and the Swiss National Bank are already making it available to their customers. In Europe, the EPC has announced that the new version will become the SEPA Credit Transfer format as soon as November 2023. Common Global Implementation (CGI), an initiative to simplify various payment related corporate-to-bank implementations by promoting the wider acceptance of ISO 20022 XML, has already released its specifications. Globally, this new standard will allow the transmission of rich data in a more structured manner. It will enable end-to-end tracking and reconciliation of payments, which has always been an issue with cross-border payments. Currently, over 70 countries are already in the process of adopting ISO 20022, including China, India, and Japan. Why is ISO 20022 Important to ERP-toBank Connectivity & Payments? With the imminent global adoption of the 2019 version of the ISO 20022 XML, organizations need to be aware of its benefits as well as its limitations, as they prepare to add it to their payment mix. For finance and IT leaders, the new standard offers a myriad of benefits in comparison to its predecessors. Adopting ISO 20022 standards helps to prevent fraud, avoid system failures, and expedite payment transactions, large and small. Use case highlights: Instant Payments: The standard enables frictionless, real-time payments by creating a global, open standard that anyone can implement on any network. Rich Data: The rich, consistent, well-structured data enabled by the new standard delivers faster transactions and helps drive innovation by allowing organizations to develop products based on customer needs. Improved Regulatory Reporting: Because the new standard requires identical formats and a higher level of detail, it creates more secure payment information that lends itself to better, faster regulatory reporting. Fraud Prevention: A standard payment format helps organizations identify fraud, including money laundering. The fact that the new format requires structured and complete addresses limits the fraud risks too. Compliance (Security Enhanced): The consistent payment format facilitates compliance with government regulatory requirements. Interoperability: The standard helps to promote interoperability for cross-border payments, improving the ability to easily exchange and make use of information. Payments Hub Upgrade: It meets the need for payment system renewal programs, ensuring alignment with global industry standardization such as SWIFT’s cross-border payments messaging migration where the MT messages will gradually be replaced by XML. Faster Reconciliation: It supports Unique End-to-end Transaction Reference (UETR) with a standardized tag, allowing the transmission of this unique id from any ERP system in a payment file to the bank and back in payment acknowledgement and bank statements. Tracking and Beneficiary Advice: The new standard improves the transmission of information through end-to-end tracking and the payment advice to the final recipients. On the flip side, while the new standard promises improved messaging interoperability between systems for the greatest number of participants, the actual experience is dependent on how individual banks set up the messaging standard internally. In other words, banks will deploy the new messaging standard differently and some workarounds will likely be necessary for seamless payment transactions. Banks* indicate time, resource, and technology constraints as major hurdles to their ISO 20022 migration. 73 percent of banks agree that technology constraints within the bank limit their ability to do more with their migration to ISO 20022.   63 percent of banks agree that budget or resource constraints limit their ability to do more with their ISO 20022 migration. Celent anticipates that the majority of banks will do just enough and be largely on time for the deadline. * Data from 51 banks surveyed across Europe Source: CELENT (2022). Survey & report: The race to ISO 20022. What Does it Mean for Your Organization? With so many tangible benefits the new standard can bring to the corporate payments, organizations should adopt it as soon as their banking partners offer it. However, according to a recent Celent survey, not all banks are equally prepared to migrate to ISO 20022. As a result, Celent also found that many corporate clients have not been sufficiently informed by their banking partners on the forthcoming ISO 20022 changes and more importantly, what actions companies would need to take to plan for the changes. This lack of communication is unfortunate as corporations must also prepare their systems to send and receive the new payment format. If not, the opportunity to benefit from the richer data is lost because the extensive data in payment messages could be truncated by the end recipient due to system unreadiness and messaging incompatibility. Based on Kyriba’s experience, we foresee that it will require some effort for enterprises to get their internal systems ready for the new message format. A quick checklist includes: Cleaning up the ERP Database with More Structured Third-Party Information. As more and more countries will only allow structured addresses in cross border transfers, complete information for the beneficiaries (full names, complete addresses and even identification numbers) will become a must. SWIFT initiative, known as CBPR+ (Cross Border Payment and Reporting +), aims to provide structured addresses already in MT messages. Kyriba advised its clients to start completing the structured addresses, at least for city, zip code, and country (and for some countries, also state/province). Harmonizing the Payments Validation Workflow. As part of the workflow design, Kyriba’s recommendation to our clients is to consider implementing a fraud detection system. The rule-based and AI-powered fraud and compliance detection mechanism will remove a lot of time-consuming and error-prone manual steps to validate payments and let all stakeholders get better control over the payments processed. Creating Processes for ERP and TMS Integration and Automating End-to-end Reconciliation. By using a unique import interface, generating unique ids for each imported file, and initiating payments in formats containing these unique ids, the reconciliation process will be transformed. Acknowledgments will be integrated with a specific format (XML Pain.002.001.10) that will allow cash managers to be alerted almost immediately when a payment is rejected. With end-to-end integration, the information can be fed in real time back to ERP for quick action. How Can a Technology Partner Help? After years of working with dedication to create a vast library of proprietary formats, the Kyriba payments team sees the coming changes as a chance to get closer to global standardization. However, as a mission-critical process, any disturbance in payment processes could cause business disruption, supplier dissatisfaction, and late material deliveries. Understandably any major format change or update makes payments and IT teams apprehensive. Therefore, it pays off to understand the subject matter in advance, plan a progressive roadmap to adopt the new standard, and if needed, work with a specialist vendor to manage the whole transformation. Kyriba is always at the forefront of formats and payments innovation, with proven ability to quickly support the latest formats required by the market. Kyriba clients can already seamlessly exchange payment transaction data with Credit Suisse using the new standard. Kyriba also supports SEPA CT XML ISO 20022 version 2019, has developed the CGI standard version XML ISO 20022 version 2019 format, and is ready to support the SWIFT migration from MT to MX messages via SWIFT Interact. To illustrate the efforts it usually takes to develop payment templates, let’s deep dive into the process: All payment templates must be individually developed and tested with each bank Developers must coordinate all testing with each bank’s technical team Format typically fails first test, multiple rounds of testing are required with each format Companies must work on each bank’s timeline and time zone Average timeline from development to production is 3-6 months for a single payment format Kyriba offers its clients a pre-built and pre-tested payment format library with over 50,000 payment scenarios ready for use, covering all major banks across the globe. Based on Kyriba’s Value Engineering Projects with our clients, Kyriba clients are looking at an average saving of $100,000 from this time-consuming and labor-intensive process. If you are in the middle of the XML migration or about to start the project, contact one of our payment experts today and we look forward to supporting you in your future payment journey. References Common Global Implementation (CGI) Initiative European Payments Council (2022): Guidance on the Migration to the 2019 Version of the ISO 20022-based XML Messaging Standard ISO (2020) Introduction to ISO 20022: Universal Financial Industry Message Scheme SWIFT (2022) UETR SWIFT (2022) What is ISO 20022? Sources CELENT (2022) Survey & Report: The Race to ISO 20022 The SWIFT Standards Team (2020): ISO 20022 for Dummies (5th) John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Cash is still king — but the value of cash and forecasted liquidity held or planned by the company can only be realized if the treasurer knows what cash is available, where it is...

Cash is still king — but the value of cash and forecasted liquidity held or planned by the company can only be realized if the treasurer knows what cash is available, where it is held and what flows are expected in the future. However, all too often, treasurers do not have access to their organization’s full cash picture. There are many good reasons for working with multiple banks across different markets, but complex banking structures and sprawling geographical footprints can make it difficult to achieve complete visibility into current balances, never mind impacting the accuracy of cash and liquidity forecasting. Luckily, achieving full visibility over cash is not an insurmountable goal. This eBook outlines the action plan treasurers can take to gain full visibility over their cash, from gaining a clear view of current bank accounts to increasing the accuracy of the cash forecast. "More than a quarter of global cash is not visible to corporate treasury on a daily basis.” Source: PWC’s Global Treasury Benchmarking Survey What is Cash Visibility? Cash visibility is critical to making effective decisions. Armed with clear visibility over the company’s current cash position and future liquidity flows, treasurers can: Invest cash strategically Support the CEO, CFO in strategic initiatives with the right levels of cash and liquidity Use cash management structures effectively Minimize debt and interest expense Make better informed hedging decisions Reduce bank fees Bolster treasury’s reputation within the organization Key Vocabulary Cash Visibility means knowing what cash the company currently has and where it is held. It also means being able to predict what cash the company will have in the future. Cash Budgeting generally performed by FP&A, is more focused beyond one year and has an increased emphasis on free, cash-flow guidance. The reconciliation of indirect budget-based forecasts with direct cash flow forecasts are increasingly managed quarterly. Cash Positioning is concerned with today and often the next five business days. The purpose is to manage daily liquidity to ensure shortfalls are covered and surpluses are concentrated to earn some yield on excess cash. Cash & Liquidity Forecasting typically extends cash positioning with horizons anywhere from one week to one year. Forecasting leverages multiple data sources to increase confidence in the projected liquidity balances so that better cash decisions can be made. Why is Cash Visibility Important? Cash visibility is the lifeblood of any organization. A company that has clear visibility can invest or deploy cash strategically while minimizing debt and interest expenses. Accurate visibility also increases the effectiveness of hedging decisions and enables the treasurer to mitigate their organization’s risk to exposures while supplying the CFO with funding in support of strategic initiatives. Conversely, a lack of clear visibility can result in numerous issues, including: Insufficient buffer of surplus cash to absorb unforeseen expenses Idle cash, lower returns on investments Insufficient return on cash Higher than necessary borrowing costs Unnecessary bank fees and costs Inadequate support for CFO strategic decision-making Less competitive results and less effective treasury organization as a partner for finance Related Resource Unreliable cash visibility and forecasting is the treasury issue that causes CFOs the most concern. "The top benefits of using Kyriba are the visibility that it provides, the timeliness with which it provides that visibility, and the ease of use, in that it provides it all in one simple one-stop shop.” TRISH FISHER Director, Treasury Operations, WeWork The Path to Visibility Whether the treasurer is seeking to pay down external borrowing or maximize return on investments, the first step is to know what cash is currently available. But that’s not all, treasurers also need to be able to predict future liquidity flows and keep the right people informed. Achieving cash visibility is possible by using 5 definitive steps to move towards greater cash visibility and flexibility: Identify and Record Without an inventory of your banks and accounts, a complete cash visibility picture is unattainable. Prioritize and Rationalize Identify where to begin, difficult regions or banks, and determine accounts for closure. Automate Bank Connectivity and Reporting Harness the most costeffective and leading connectivity methods to access data from banks in an automated way. Generate and Streamline Cash Positioning with Liquidity Forecasting Accurately predict cash flows over the coming hours and days, and match actuals to forecasts to speed up daily reconciliation and cash application. Enhance and Optimize Future Cash Flow with Liquidity Planning The ability to see a holistic, aggregated view of cash and liquidity sources creates more accurate views and predictable free cash flow. Knowing your predictable liquidity creates a better understanding of any future liquidity shortfalls. Step One: Identify and Record Regardless of the scale and breadth of your organization’s banking and accounts structure, it is important to understand the banking landscape of all business units and subsidiaries. Whether operating in a domestic or international capacity, banking relationships. the accounts, the purpose of those accounts, and the core attributes of the bank, the accounts and their purpose all are necessary to begin a cash visibility project. This has many implications for the success of global cash visibility projects, such as: Establishing a full inventory of managed accounts, ensuring all balances are identified Ensuring the proper scope and prioritization of your project Optimization and rationalization across banks and accounts Effective comparisons and evaluations across banks for technical capabilities for connectivity, tech, regional coverage and other important services An effective bank relationship and bank account management database is the starting point for successful projects, but particularly when it comes to cash reporting. Where cash is rolling up in concentration or pooling structures, how funds are being transferred, purpose of the accounts, and even regulatory limitations all have a say in how you engage with your banking partners and the extent of cash flexibility. Step Two: Prioritize and Rationalize Bank reporting rationalization ensures accounts are identified and open for the right reasons. Often, particularly in international or more complex organizations, accounts are opened in haste to support business development and decisions. This is often necessary for statutory purposes, or to deal with an unforeseen acquisition or reorganization. However, if this situation exists, it’s possible cash and liquidity is not well defined or identified, as well. Organizations must understand and rationalize accounts, prior to moving into the next ‘step’, but this can continue throughout the project in parallel, too. The focus here is on creating a streamlined, but effective banking and account structure that fulfills treasury’s mission of safeguarding and optimizing cash, while still meeting specific business unit or subsidiary’s requirements. Bank improvements in reporting quality as well as the leading application of configuration within leading treasury management systems, creates the scenarios where previously opened, special-purpose accounts are no longer required to serve special purposes such as revenue, collections, treasury, or payables accounts. With banks being able to provide significantly improved quality of liquidity information within bank statements and other special purpose reports, and the speed of that data increasing through APIs, some companies can conduct business with one or two bank accounts per legal entity, business unit or country office. The focus here is on creating a streamlined, but effective banking and account structure that fulfills treasury’s mission of safeguarding and optimizing cash, while still meeting specific business unit or subsidiary’s requirements. Step Three: Automate Bank Connectivity and Reporting Visibility over multiple accounts requires automated bank connectivity. Companies of all sizes are often challenged in finding and implementing the right bank connectivity solution and is a critical driver of lack of visibility into cash. On the surface, bank connectivity is easy, so long as treasury teams prioritize the following: Security Automation Speed and Cost There are a variety of connectivity options to deliver security, automation and cost objectives. Yet, not all connectivity options are alike. Bank connectivity comes in a number of different forms, including: Host-to-host solutions, such as FTP, or leading practice connections using application programming interfaces (APIs) Country or region-specific protocols such as EBICS, Editran, Zengin Global cooperatives like SWIFT , which offer flexibility to manage your own connectivity or use a service provider and fully managed service bureaus The ideal connectivity solution for an organization will actually depend on factors such as bank and payment transaction volumes, bank account structures, and the location of company banks. These characteristics — in combination with what technologies the banks can (and prefer) to support — will drive the ideal connectivity choices. In practice, a combination of connectivity methods is likely the best solution to optimize costs while maintaining automation and security. Without utilizing varying connectivity methods, the company may spend more than necessary and potentially sacrifice information transparency. While managing multiple connectivity methods on your own may seem complex, connectivity-as-aservice models gives organizations faster global access to banks with pre-configured and existing connections. This coverage of the connective landscape for banks saves effort and time spelling big cost savings for the project phase as well as ongoing productive operations. When you select the right vendor to simplify bank connectivity by taking care of everything — from building connections, monitoring availability, and delivering automation all while providing new technology like APIs, organizations win and save money. Step Four: Generate and Streamline Cash Positions and Liquidity Forecasts The goal of cash positioning is to establish a realtime view of cash at any point in time and to be able to reconcile prior-day forecasts to enable the deployment of cash throughout the organization more quickly and accurately. Effective cash positioning reduces idle cash, creating opportunities to earn immediate yield while providing certainty over risk exposures that cash is exposed to. As a process, cash positioning involves gaining a real-time view of the company’s cash position at any moment in the current day(s) by consolidating a number of different sources and replacing old data with more up-to-date information. With today’s APIs gaining the real-time, near-instantaneous view of cash and liquidity is easier than ever. Within treasury technology, building the cash position typically involves combining a number of data sources: Prior-day balance — automatically downloaded from banks at the start of the day Current-day bank reporting — automatically downloaded from banks throughout the day, either at specific times (e.g., 1st or 2nd presentment) or as a constant stream of data via an API Expected payables and receivables — from the organization’s ERP and reported/cleared from bank statement details Treasury financial transactions and settlements — which are integrated within the treasury system Building a cash position is just the start. After building a cash position, it is then necessary to maintain and reconcile it. Maintaining the cash position involves updating and replacing cash flow data with more accurate information via intra-day updates from internal systems and banks. Reconciliation of the cash position is the matching of actuals to forecast flows, which is often done first thing in the morning as a part of typical treasury processes. The goal is to identify and understand surprises — for example, if a transaction did not happen yesterday then it may happen today, meaning the unreconciled variance needs to be rolled into today’s position. For many organizations, this process can be time consuming, so rules-based automation or artificial intelligence can be introduced to simplify the process. Key requirements for cash positioning include interactive dashboards and clear communication within — and outside of the treasury organizations: Interactive dashboards enable cash managers to drill down through multiple levels into any component of the cash position. Positions should be viewable by multiple dimensions in real-time by line item, bank, entity, currency, etc. Communication within and outside of treasury is critical. The treasurer, CFO and finance personnel managing subsidiaries all require cash visibility, so delivering visual and detailed reconciled cash positions is a critical outcome of daily cash positioning. Effective cash positioning and liquidity planning leads to numerous benefits for the finance organization: Keeping the CFO and the Board up to date with reliable and accurate cash position information Mobilizing cash across the organization for funding and investment purposes Enabling cash management processes such as pooling, sweeping and intercompany borrowing Optimizing interest income and expense via better informed borrowing and lending operations Reducing external borrowing by using internal cash resources effectively Step Five: Enhance, Optimize and Predict Cash and Liquidity While cash positioning can be used to predict cash flows in the coming hours and days, cash forecasting with liquidity planning information creates more accurate, longer horizons beyond weeks, extending into months, years. Cash forecasting must not only be accurate, but predictive using more historical and current data to be truly effective. Without complete confidence in projected forecasts, the cash forecast cannot support treasury in improving cash utilization. Cash forecasting is needed to help treasury invest cash over longer maturities, secure borrowing to fund operations and make more effective hedging decisions. And confidence in the cash forecast is the difference between achieving these outcomes and hoping to do so. So why do so many companies struggle to achieve an accurate forecast? Common challenges include a lack of accurate data sources, lost results from past forecasts, ineffective methodologies and a lack of alignment with performance metrics. If a forecast isn’t reliable, treasury is unable to trust it and therefore cannot use the cash forecast to make critical decisions. It is crucial to incorporate data sources from treasury, like financial transactions along with all the normal P2P and O2C cycle flows from the ERP Cash forecasting and Liquidity Planning creates future views of anticipated free cash flow and helps all of finance from FP&A to the CFO better strategic accuracy in decision-making. Identify, Find the Data Consolidate the Information Measuring Forecast Accuracy Predictive Analytics: Optimize Your Forecast Find the Data: Collaborating with Other Teams Forecasting incorporates key data points from elsewhere in the business so that effective collaboration can be administered between AP, FP&A, IT and regional controllers who own valuable forecasts data and/or administer systems to enhance forecast visibility. This collaboration is essential in making sure everyone involved knows what they are expected to provide with executive oversight to ensure that collaboration is prioritized. Consolidating Forecast Data Automating the integration of forecast data into a single system of record is the next critical factor in achieving effective forecasting. In many cases, source data may come from various ERP modules or in some cases other special purpose systems like procurement or revenue recognition/accounts receivable. In the past and in some situations, spreadsheet data to augment or provide coverage for areas or business units without systems could be a source, too. While consolidating data into a single system could be an IT-intensive exercise, best practice is to eliminate the need for internal IT resources, reducing the cost and time required to integrate systems. This can be done by having pre-built connectivity and integration through APIs provided by your treasury system. Measuring Forecast Accuracy The final piece of cash forecasting is to measure the accuracy of the cash forecast at a detailed level. Measuring forecast performance is critical to understanding how effective each line item and source of information was, offering valuable insight into where the forecast can be improved. This analysis must be done at a detailed level. For example, measuring accuracy before and after a 90-day/13- week period can hide many anomalies and offers no meaningful conclusions. Many organizations will measure week over week, while some will drill down at a daily level. Once accuracy is measured, the treasury team must implement a feedback loop to effect meaningful change. Regional controllers, for example, can only improve if presented with detailed facts. Further, standardized KPIs — that ideally would form a component of performance reviews and compensation calculations — go a long way in reinforcing desired forecast behavior. This is where commitment from the CFO will drive effective forecast performance. Optimize: Predictions for your Cash and Liquidity Once the foundation is established for forecasting your liquidity with the prior steps, the next level naturally leads to identifying the technology solution that will offer your organization and team the support and improvements for your liquidity forecasting. Technology can do more to provide value through expanding the horizon of your forecast, depth of insight, accuracy, and enhanced user experience with information already within your organization’s grasp. Through tools that leverage artificial intelligence companies today should be more advanced and be capable of: Create predictive dashboards and enhanced reporting Cash forecasts with risk models built-in Identify optimum cash cushion, draw-down levels, and investment levels Characteristics to look for when evolving and upleveling your forecasting efforts should include looking to solutions using AI-based predictive analytics for forecasting including calculations based on risk models that give treasury and FP&A teams the optimal cash cushion. Additionally, look for solutions giving you: Cash flow by level of confidence Recommendations for optimal investment strategy Predict liquidity requirements To successfully deploy an AI-driven predictive forecasting model, organizations must prepare structured and normalized historical data. Machine learning algorithms will identify patterns within the data to make predictions about when, for example, customers will actually remit payment. This AI-predicted data stream will align with other forecast data sources to deliver a more intelligent cash forecast to predict future liquidity needs. Human interaction remains important to ensure liquidity forecasting and planning aligns with internal risk policies of the team and organization. AI is a tool to complement, rather than replace, treasury teams as they execute more complex tasks and processes. In this role, AI is a critical piece in the drive to towards real-time treasury decision making and the progressions towards 24/7 liquidity management. Optimizing Cash Visibility Benefits Achieving full cash visibility takes time and effort, but the rewards are significant. Armed with a complete, accurate and up-to-date picture of the current cash position and liquidity planning flows, treasurers can: Make timely and confident decisions about activities, including investments, borrowing, cash concentration and hedging Pay down external borrowing with a clearer view of the cash available Invest strategically with a clear picture of current and future flows Reduce bank fees by closing or combining redundant bank accounts or negotiating with banks from a position of knowledge Minimize debt and interest expense by making the best use of internal cash and reducing external borrowing Gain a clearer picture of risk exposures and manage those risks more effectively Optimize planning of borrowing and lending operations Increase effectiveness of hedging by ensuring decisions are based on complete pictures of current balances and planned future transactions Cash Visibility – Final Thoughts The future of treasury technology is here and advancing rapidly; some banks have deployed their own APIs to integrate with their customers’ systems. New platforms are opening new products and services for corporate customers. One of these innovations is the movement towards real-time bank reporting. In many parts of the world, intra-day reporting happens less than twice per day, and in some cases not at all, meaning that daily cash positioning is largely driven by prior-day reporting and expectations of clearings throughout the day. Real-time bank reporting, delivered only by APIs, is the future and will be a game-changer for cash managers looking to achieve instant cash visibility into accounts. Additionally, Liquidity Planning extends the value of real-time treasury with the inclusion of cash, treasury instruments, planning information and liability information to deliver longer range strategic decisions by the CFO. Combined with real-time payments, treasury teams will be in an enviable position of not only having real-time views into bank accounts but also being able to mobilize cash domestically — and eventually cross border — within seconds. The transformation to real-time reporting will further pressure treasury teams to employ the right processes and analysis to effectively manage cash information in real time. It will be a change for those organizations that lack modern treasury technology, but an opportunity for enabled organizations to earn a competitive advantage in the utilization and deployment of cash. How Kyriba Can Help Kyriba can support you in achieving full visibility over cash. Kyriba helps organizations reduce the cost and complexity of bank connectivity — whether a company is connecting via SWIFT, using APIs, leveraging country protocol or using a combination of channels prioritizing security, automation and cost minimization. Organizations can easily keep track of signatories, manage workflows and store documents thanks to the control over all global bank accounts given by Kyriba’s bank relationship management solution. Additionally, companies can maximize the accuracy of their cash and liquidity reporting with Kyriba’s detailed and flexible variance analysis and feedback loop to forecast sources. With a full picture of current balances and future flows, you’ll be better positioned to make confident decisions about cash. Want to learn more about how to achieve cash visibility for better cash forecasting with Kyriba? Check out this webinar where Kyriba client, Kelkoo Group, a leading e-commerce company, shares their best practices and the payoffs of superior cash forecasting.

APIs offer a lifeline for CFOs and treasurers who are looking for both innovation and cost improvements. Although many CFOs think of APIs as an expedited pathway for bank connectivity, bank connections are just...

APIs offer a lifeline for CFOs and treasurers who are looking for both innovation and cost improvements. Although many CFOs think of APIs as an expedited pathway for bank connectivity, bank connections are just the tip of the iceberg. APIs open integration to a variety of systems, including capabilities that vastly improve cash forecasting, liquidity management and payments. APIs offer an information and processing gateway to realizing digital transformation. Unlike FTP, APIs do not require files to be sent or downloaded. Data is exchanged point to point between systems immediately, allowing for instant data transmission and eliminating substantial risk. They enable the development and use of faster, pre-built connectors to reduce implementation times and facilitate real-time payments and security. In this whitepaper, we'll explore: What APIs are and how they work The different types of APIs that are available How APIs can revolutionize ERP connectivity, cash management, liquidity management, payments and more. CFOs are investing more than ever on enterprise platforms, with organizations spending an estimated $675 billion in 2022, according to Statista. Much of this investment is for organizations to move their enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems to cloud platforms, such as SAP S/4 Hana Oracle Cloud, and Microsoft Dynamics 365 leading the large corporate market. For CIOs looking to effectively support their CFO business partners, connectivity from ERP to internal and external systems and data sets remains a costly challenge, often delaying go-live dates and driving significant cost overruns. Application programming interfaces (APIs) offer a lifeline for CIOs and CFOs who are looking for both innovation and cost improvements. And while many CFOs think of APIs as an expedited pathway for bank connectivity, bank connections are just the tip of the iceberg. APIs open integration to a variety of systems, introducing capabilities and process automation that had not previously been possible. APIs offer an information and processing gateway to realizing digital transformation. What Is an API? An API is a program that allows mulitple pieces of software to “talk” to each other. Applications on your phone and embedded widgets on a website all use APIs to request or deliver information. Why APIs Matter for Finance Gartner research revealed that nearly 50 percent of financial leaders will incorporate a “composable financial management system” by 2024 “to deliver capabilities and outcomes that keep up with the rapid pace of business change.” APIs are enabling that change. They are transforming the way finance leaders consume data and are allowing a coupling of multiple applications that was previously impractical to support, creating a gateway to real-time business intelligence and digital solutions. Unlike file transfer protocol (FTP), APIs do not require files to be sent or downloaded. Data is exchanged point to point between the systems immediately, allowing for instant data transmission and eliminating substantial risk. They enable the development and use of faster, pre-built connectors to reduce implementation times and facilitate real-time payments and security. "With APIs, your platforms evolve from being systems of record to systems of engagement,” said Bob Stark, Global Head of Market Strategy at Kyriba. “Your platform is connected with any number of internal and external systems to be continuously up to date.” Open API Platforms APIs facilitate open networks. Using developer portals, technology providers can build applications on top of the API provider’s platform. Open banking is a perfect example. The Revised Payments Services Directive (PSD2) in 2018 helped to make APIs even more relevant for corporate treasury and finance. The EU Directive requires banks to open their platforms to payment technology providers – with APIs being a leading solution to manage this compliance. Although PSD2 only applies to the European Union, similar initiatives in other regions also quickly emerged as banks in the United States and throughout APAC have recognized the opportunity to offer real-time, data-driven services to corporate clients. "The PSD2 movement has really encouraged banks to start to open APIs for corporates.” —Felix Grevy, VP of Product, Open API and Connectivity for Kyriba A common frustration among treasury and finance leaders is a lack of centralized visibility across multiple departments, liquidity and payments. Open API platforms act as a conduit between disparate teams and systems, allowing for real-time connections to apps, data, and new products and services. Open API platforms reduce manual processes, and deliver composable technology solutions, enabling corporate and bank users to inject data-driven decision-making into every financial operation. APIs for Bank Connectivity It’s important to note that banks and technology solutions providers that are managing open platforms are not replacing legacy formats like FTP and SWIFT with APIs. Instead, they are offering APIs as a complement to these formats. Following the advent of PSD2, European banks have begun using “premium” APIs, which are open APIs with greater functionality. "The difference between the PSD2 APIs and premium APIs is that premium APIs are more powerful,” Grevy said. “You can retrieve balances and do instant payments. And they are much more secure, and much more appropriate for integration with an ERP or treasury management system (TMS).” Banking services optimized via API vary, some examples include: Bank Groups Branch Reporting Bank Account Groups Cash and Cash Flow Reporting However, the rollout has been slow. Most banks are not using APIs in live production yet, and many of the ones that do use APIs only offer them for certain real-time services—meaning that multiple connectivity options are needed to fully support a treasury and finance team. Furthermore, most technology vendors only offer no functionality beyond bank connectivity and can only connect one ERP to a bank. Nevertheless, API connectivity brings key advantages over a file-based approach, such as immediate response from banks, and the ability to receive new data and notifications in real-time. So while adoption may be slow and gradual, the advantages to the end user are clear. ERP Connectors ERP platforms like SAP, Oracle and MS Dynamics have major efforts to develop and embed APIs into a wide array of functions and workflows. Luckily, for IT and Finance functions arent’ required to do the heavy lift; these APIs are plug-and-play and enabling more and more core integrations and reporting capabilities. Cash Management APIs offer organizations the ability to manage cash continuously and in real-time. Rather than relying on batch reporting that is constrained to pre-determined times throughout the day, treasury teams can now access reports as needed. Receiving un-batched, real-time liquidity information greatly improves cash reconciliations, cash application, and accuracy of liquidity overall. This will, in turn, change the mechanics for best-practice cash forecasting and lead to the production of intraday liquidity products, such as hourly investing. Allowing treasury professionals to access their cash outside of previously “normal” hours not only expands the scope in which organizations can leverage their liquidity, but also allows treasury to make greater strategic contributions. APIs also allow treasury and finance to track sufficient movements in and out of the accounts throughout the day. That visibility can help organizations to make significant intraday decisions instead of end of day or overnight. Payments APIs can streamline the entire payment journey. Instead of relying on batch processes that transmit at several pre-determined times each day, APIs allow payments to be initiated from treasury management systems and ERP systems as needed—even in real time. In fact, real-time payments require APIs. Simply put, if you want payments to settle instantly, you can’t rely on file transfers. Using File Transfer, bank files are extracted, reformatted, encrypted, and downloaded by the treasury platform—a process that takes five to ten minutes at least. Once balances are known, the process to send and confirm a payment is another five to ten minutes at minimum. APIs, in contrast, can query a bank balance and then send a real-time payment instantly without the transfer of any files. With the rapid increase of both domestic real-time payment systems (The Clearing House’s RTP and FedNow in the U.S.) and cross-border platforms (SEPA Instant, SWIFT Go, and Nexus) APIs are a necessity for businesses who want to deliver instant payments. Leveraging APIs to utilize real-time payments not only revolutionizes the initiation and acknowledgement process, but also the ability to mitigate fraud. While the 2022 AFP Payments Fraud & Control Survey found that business email compromise scams have decreased recently, they are nevertheless still a persistent threat. Since real-time payments don’t afford users the opportunity to identify fraudulent transactions after transmission, fraud mitigation strategies must now be included in the approval process. Building APIs into the payment platform allows users to fully automate bank account validation and payment policy screening, identifying exceptions. Outliers can be flagged and set aside for review, while all other payments travel seamlessly as intended. Creating Flexible Reporting and Information Systems APIs are far more than just connectors to banks and ERPs. APIs can revolutionize the ways in which treasury and finance operate both internally and holistically. APIs offer the ability to create a flexible, custom, data warehouse that could exist within your TMS, as some treasury systems can act as a single source of record. When other systems have limited functionality, your data warehouse can fill the gaps through provision of market data, financial transaction specifics such as portfolio, project or risk-related information to deliver a quick, flexible source of weekly treasury reporting. Regardless of where your data is stored, APIs establish the means to integrate various data sources within a single repository or warehouse. Second, APIs allow treasury and finance to automate beyond task automation, which streamlines the organization’s own capabilities. APIs enable process automation, which simplifies and entire workflow like the entire payment journey. Entire systems and processes can be brought together more easily via APIs. Both automation and the extent of the functional coverage facilitate composable financial management systems. When networks of personalized systems, reports, dashboards, and efficient workstreams are enabled and integrated by APIs, treasury and finance teams can then focus on accelerating innovation and cost-reduction projects. ERPs, while critical, are not the only system requiring strong integration and the exchange of information for stronger decision-making. APIs are the glue that holds all of these components together and APIs change the efficiency and real-time capabilities for treasury and finance leaders. "CFOs and CIOs, hand in hand, are recognizing that we need APIs to bring everything together to accelerate the innovation,” Stark said. “Before APIs, the way that you’re making a composable financial system is by using custom interfaces, manual clicking and logging into systems and, if you’re lucky, a little bit of RPA. APIs are perfectly suited to improve process automation, linking multiple systems and workflows together, because they allow finance teams to build a system of multiple components.” Figure 1. Progression of Hyberautomation Initiatives Source: Gartner 2021 References Information technology (IT) spending on enterprise software worldwide, from 2009 to 2023 2022 AFP Payments Fraud and Control Survey Gartner Identifies the Top Technology Trends That CFOs Should Address Today   Interested to learn more about why APIs are more than just pre-built, pre-developed connections and how they will change the way treasury and finance leaders consume and act on information? Check out this webinar where Alex Yang from Bank of America, David Miller from Hunt Companies and Bob Stark from Kyriba demystify APIs' value for payments, intra-day liquidity, ERP integration, fraud detection, cryptocurrencies and more.

By any measure, 2023 is shaping up to be a challenging year for businesses both in the U.S. and across the world. As the FOMC raises interest rates another 50 basis points in December 2022, expectations on continued rate increases persist. FX rates and commodity prices continue to experience heightened volatility, driven by the threat of recession and ongoing supply chain problems. Beneath these headlines, the treasurer’s environment continues to evolve, with ongoing innovations across treasury offering opportunities to improve treasury's role and effect on overall financial management.

By any measure, 2023 is shaping up to be a challenging year for businesses both in the U.S. and across the world. As the FOMC raises interest rates another 50 basis points in December 2022, expectations on continued rate increases persist. FX rates and commodity prices continue to experience heightened volatility, driven by the threat of recession and ongoing supply chain problems. Beneath these headlines, the treasurer’s environment continues to evolve, with ongoing innovations across treasury offering opportunities to improve treasury's role and effect on overall financial management. For companies with a small number of key customer accounts, monitoring individual DSO levels will also highlight potential problems with key customers and allow early intervention to take place.

Nearly every company doing business beyond its own borders faces the challenge of cost-effectively managing currency risk, and each year corporations incur billions of dollars in currency-related losses due to volatility. In many cases,...

Nearly every company doing business beyond its own borders faces the challenge of cost-effectively managing currency risk, and each year corporations incur billions of dollars in currency-related losses due to volatility. In many cases, these losses are attributable to manual, spreadsheet-based currency risk management programs and processes. Regardless of the sophistication or complexity of an organization, every corporation can benefit from automated FX risk management.

Kyriba delivers the industry’s most advanced currency risk management solutions with extensive business intelligence capabilities for easy identification and understanding of foreign exchange (FX) risk.

Delivering on-demand interactivity with Oracle applications, Kyriba for Oracle is a cloud-based solution that reduces the risk of foreign currency volatility to earnings per share and corporate value.

ELM is one of the most critical areas for any organization. It spans Cash & Liquidity Management, Capital Markets & Risk Management, Payments & Fraud, and Working Capital, all of which are paramount to organizational vitality.

ELM is one of the most critical areas for any organization. It spans Cash & Liquidity Management, Capital Markets & Risk Management, Payments & Fraud, and Working Capital, all of which are paramount to organizational vitality. As such, and given the mounting uncertainty, rising inflation, global pandemics, and geo-political instability, it should be benchmarked regularly. Initiating a comprehensive and rigorous liquidity benchmarking evaluation would not only help to identify internal gaps, but also, help an organization garner and adopt industry best practices to weather the storm and even thrive. We believe that enabling organizations to objectively take necessary steps to benchmark their performance would improve organizational resilience and boost efforts to drive enhanced competitiveness and value creation.  Gathering the required information from scratch can be a monumental task, especially if there is no benchmarking foundation, established methodologies, long data history and peer comparison groups across both leading and lagging indicators.   The dilemma many organizations face is acknowledging the importance of the insights that can be derived from benchmarking yet recognizing the daunting task of building a practice by themselves. This often leads to deferring benchmarking initiatives. To overcome this challenge, organizations partner with liquidity management and industry experts/advisors to perform this critical strategic step.   Here at Kyriba, we made the decision five years ago to build performance benchmarking to support our clients and prospective customers need to assess themselves against peer groups to determine 1- what’s working well, and 2- what needs to be improved upon.   The Kyriba benchmarking database has 1,600 organizations across multiple industries, sectors, revenue sizes and geographies, making it the largest ELM benchmarking repository in the world. The database is also growing at 500 to 600 per year.  With the only dedicated practice around ELM benchmarking, Kyriba uses finance and treasury practitioners and executives to conduct client assessments. Furthermore, to streamline the process and make it efficient, the Kyriba Value Engineering Team uses collaboration tools to collect, validate and refine the data it collects from clients. Client organizations are critical to the success of the program. The Kyriba team collaborates with our clients to identify the right improvement opportunities they need to pursue based on factual empirical data. We use our benchmarking findings as a blueprint for value creation, monitoring, and realization. This full value lifecycle approach allows clients and Kyriba to forge a value-based, outcome-focused partnership.  ABOUT OUR TEAM Kyriba’s Value Engineering team has assisted over 1,600 companies, across all sectors, revenue sizes and geographies, to perform the right process diagnostics, develop iron-clad, board-ready value assessment, and provide risk and threat profiles with implications and mitigation strategies. To conduct this level of analysis, the Kyriba Value Engineering team has recruited the best in the business. Each Value Engineer has over 15 years of field, treasury and finance experience, and hundreds of assessments under her/his belt, and are relentlessly focused on client satisfaction. Each Value Engineer will collaborate with your team to create the compelling case you need to secure the required investment to support your treasury transformation. Should you want to learn more about how Kyriba Value Engineering can help you, please contact the Value Engineering team at [email protected] or your Kyriba Sales representative or visit www.kyriba.com.

Digital transformation continues to occupy front and center stage across all areas of finance and banking. The pandemic and geopolitical shocks have amplified the need for real-time insights enabling confidence in financial decisions, especially as they relate to liquidity.

Establishing a Compelling Value Proposition: What, Why and Why Now? Digital transformation continues to occupy front and center stage across all areas of finance and banking. The pandemic and geopolitical shocks have amplified the need for real-time insights enabling confidence in financial decisions, especially as they relate to liquidity. These events have caused companies to adapt their business models, ensure the availability of sufficient liquidity even in the worst-case scenarios and further accelerated existing digital transformation initiatives. Treasury and finance organizations are being called upon to provide more reliable and timely insights in support of executive strategic decisions.  However, for those organizations with existing legacy manual processes and tools providing such real-time insights to executive boards proves quite challenging. We find that organizations across all sectors in the treasury space are looking for digital solutions to help improve the maturity of their processes and elevate treasury to a more prominent role in the organization.   Chief financial officers typically receive requests from multiple departments for project funding. The challenge is that they can only approve a fraction of these projects. Funding is scarce. Projects are approved based on meaningful, measurable, and provable business outcomes.  When building a case for change, Kyriba Value Engineering has identified three best practices to secure funding for any technology-led initiative. Properly articulating the business outcomes and value of a technology investment will structure an appealing and credible value proposition and greatly improve the chances that a project gets approval from the executive team. Here is what we believe to be your must do list: Process Analysis: Understand what processes are working well and what processes offer an opportunity for improvement. Solves for the “What” question. Build a financial business case that will provide a meaningful and actionable return for the enterprise. Takes care of the “Why” question. Perform a Risk Assessment to understand the vulnerabilities and threats from the existing status quo, identify impact and develop mitigation strategies. While this return is hard to quantify, the impact can be very detrimental to an organization. Addresses the “Why Now” question.  The Kyriba Value Engineering team has assisted over 1600 companies, across all sectors, revenue sizes and geographies, to perform the right process diagnostics, develop ironclad, board-ready value assessment, and provide risk and threat profiles with implications and mitigation strategies. To conduct this level of analysis, the Kyriba Value Engineering team has recruited the best in the business. Each Value Engineer has over 15 years of field, treasury and finance experience, and hundreds of assessments under her/his belt, and are relentlessly focuses on client satisfaction. Each Value Engineer will collaborate with your team to create the compelling case you need to secure the required investment to support your treasury transformation.  See Where Your Organization Stands Compared to Industry Leaders GET YOUR ASSESSMENT

Every organization talks about cash forecasting more effectively, but few allocate sufficient people, time and technology to build an effective program. Understanding the importance of an accurate cash forecast that can be relied upon...

Every organization talks about cash forecasting more effectively, but few allocate sufficient people, time and technology to build an effective program. Understanding the importance of an accurate cash forecast that can be relied upon for key financial decisions is critical to making the right investments in forecasting.

Artificial intelligence and machine learning have gradually worked their way into everyday life in treasury and finance. But while some organizations are currently using these technologies, we’ve only scratched the surface of their potential.

Artificial intelligence and machine learning have gradually worked their way into everyday life in treasury and finance. But while some organizations are currently using these technologies, we’ve only scratched the surface of their potential.

Enterprise Liquidity Management (ELM) has emerged as a new practice area within the CFO’s and treasury professional’s remit to manage and execute the entire lifecycle of corporate liquidity—a specialized capability traditional Treasury Management Systems...

Enterprise Liquidity Management (ELM) has emerged as a new practice area within the CFO’s and treasury professional’s remit to manage and execute the entire lifecycle of corporate liquidity—a specialized capability traditional Treasury Management Systems and ERPs are not able to deliver. The ELM concept a purpose-built, dedicated Enterprise Liquidity Platform has emerged as the software solution suite required to do so.

CFOs, Treasurers, Risk Managers, alike “don’t know what they don’t know” about their foreign currency exposure data.

CFOs, Treasurers, Risk Managers, alike “don’t know what they don’t know” about their foreign currency exposure data.

Currency headwinds grew by 215% to nearly $7 billion in Q4 2021 according to the latest Currency Impact Report (CIR), which details the impacts of foreign exchange (FX) exposures among 1,200 multinational companies based...

Currency headwinds grew by 215% to nearly $7 billion in Q4 2021 according to the latest Currency Impact Report (CIR), which details the impacts of foreign exchange (FX) exposures among 1,200 multinational companies based in North America and Europe.

Modern payment fraud threats are innovative and constantly evolving. To confront these threats, organizations need to deploy the most up‑to-date detection and prevention solutions.

Modern payment fraud threats are innovative and constantly evolving. To confront these threats, organizations need to deploy the most up‑to-date detection and prevention solutions.

Modern treasurers face numerous challenges due to the evolving financial landscape and the ongoing pandemic. Disruptions such as global supply chain issues, staffing shortages and fraud attacks have caused organizations to re-evaluate their processes...

Modern treasurers face numerous challenges due to the evolving financial landscape and the ongoing pandemic. Disruptions such as global supply chain issues, staffing shortages and fraud attacks have caused organizations to re-evaluate their processes to be able to survive and continue to operate as efficiently as possible.

Real-time or instant payments initiatives are proliferating all over the globe, but corporate adoption has lagged thus far. To justify investment in real-time payments finance and treasury departments need to define clear use cases...

Real-time or instant payments initiatives are proliferating all over the globe, but corporate adoption has lagged thus far. To justify investment in real-time payments finance and treasury departments need to define clear use cases for them. This new eBook, Making Real-Time Payments a Reality for Finance and Treasury, explores the recent push for real-time payments around the world, as well as the potential that these payments have for businesses.

During these times of accelerated growth and change, interest in supply chain finance solutions that can provide thorough evaluation and analysis is rapidly increasing. The Supply Chain Finance (SCF) & Cash Conversion Cycle (CCC...

During these times of accelerated growth and change, interest in supply chain finance solutions that can provide thorough evaluation and analysis is rapidly increasing. The Supply Chain Finance (SCF) & Cash Conversion Cycle (CCC ) Analyst Report will cover a variety of solutions that address pain points in the cash conversion cycle.

In today’s ever-changing business environment, there are several key factors that are driving change across the treasury aggregation landscape. The Treasury Aggregator Analyst Report covers the pain points driving this technology.

In today’s ever-changing business environment, there are several key factors that are driving change across the treasury aggregation landscape. The Treasury Aggregator Analyst Report covers the pain points driving this technology.

The latest Strategic Treasurer Analyst Report provides a glimpse into the current TMS space and outlines the primary benefits of a treasury management system.

The latest Strategic Treasurer Analyst Report provides a glimpse into the current TMS space and outlines the primary benefits of a treasury management system.

As Ruth Porat, CFO of Alphabet, has said, “There’s no question that liquidity is sacrosanct.” Companies that can identify and use cash with confidence can now leverage liquidity as an asset for strategic value...

As Ruth Porat, CFO of Alphabet, has said, “There’s no question that liquidity is sacrosanct.” Companies that can identify and use cash with confidence can now leverage liquidity as an asset for strategic value creation.

In a world where so many teams now work-from-home, remote implementation of critical projects has become part of the new normal. For treasury teams, the best practices around remote implementation have come into sharp...

In a world where so many teams now work-from-home, remote implementation of critical projects has become part of the new normal. For treasury teams, the best practices around remote implementation have come into sharp relief very quickly. Following this new playbook enables treasury teams to work from anywhere, while offering best-in-class levels of efficiency and automation.

The global interest rate benchmark, London Interbank Offered Rate (LIBOR), will lose its status and likely be replaced by 2022. Having been a hallmark in treasury the past 30 years, this shift has generated...

The global interest rate benchmark, London Interbank Offered Rate (LIBOR), will lose its status and likely be replaced by 2022. Having been a hallmark in treasury the past 30 years, this shift has generated a great deal of uncertainty, leaving those in the market to make choices without a widely held consensus or waiting for others to choose.

ERP cloud migration is a costly and time-consuming undertaking, particularly where IT is concerned – and for many corporations, the bank integration exercise can be among the most daunting aspects of the project.

ERP cloud migration is a costly and time-consuming undertaking, particularly where IT is concerned – and for many corporations, the bank integration exercise can be among the most daunting aspects of the project.

More than 70 percent of SAP and Oracle customers are due to undergo an ERP cloud migration within the next three years, a major undertaking. But such a project also offers a great opportunity...

More than 70 percent of SAP and Oracle customers are due to undergo an ERP cloud migration within the next three years, a major undertaking. But such a project also offers a great opportunity to approach payments more strategically in areas such as fraud detection, bank connectivity and payment formats.

This Treasury in Practice guide offers excellent tips to increase the prominence of treasury within the organization and become a trusted ally to the CFO, the entire C-suite, and the business as a whole.

This Treasury in Practice guide offers excellent tips to increase the prominence of treasury within the organization and become a trusted ally to the CFO, the entire C-suite, and the business as a whole.

The current global and economic state has highlighted the growing need for treasury and finance team to focus on activating their liquidity. And doing so has become increasingly easy with technology. So how does...

The current global and economic state has highlighted the growing need for treasury and finance team to focus on activating their liquidity. And doing so has become increasingly easy with technology. So how does treasury leverage technology to activate liquidity and generate new growth, and what does it gain by doing so?

While Treasury departments are typically aware of the advantages of using a treasury management system (TMS), they are often less clear on what is required to achieve the full benefits.

While Treasury departments are typically aware of the advantages of using a treasury management system (TMS), they are often less clear on what is required to achieve the full benefits.

Kyriba and CFO.com surveyed more than 150 CFOs and senior finance executives to learn their current priorities related to treasury, their top treasury concerns for 2020 and areas they think need to improve.

Kyriba and CFO.com surveyed more than 150 CFOs and senior finance executives to learn their current priorities related to treasury, their top treasury concerns for 2020 and areas they think need to improve.

Establishing effective treasury policies while executing consistent operational procedures is one of the most understated responsibilities of treasury. And while a treasury department is only as good as the policies and procedures it has...

Establishing effective treasury policies while executing consistent operational procedures is one of the most understated responsibilities of treasury. And while a treasury department is only as good as the policies and procedures it has in place, many treasurers consider them to be an afterthought, or the ones available are largely outdated.

In today’s ever-changing business environment, there are several key factors that are driving change across the treasury aggregation landscape. Strategic Treasurer’s Treasury Aggregator Analyst Report outlines these key factors and provides other helpful information.

In today’s ever-changing business environment, there are several key factors that are driving change across the treasury aggregation landscape. Strategic Treasurer’s Treasury Aggregator Analyst Report outlines these key factors and provides other helpful information.

The latest Strategic Treasurer Analyst Report provides a glimpse into the current TMS space and outlines the primary benefits of a treasury management system. This latest report dives into how your peers are thinking...

The latest Strategic Treasurer Analyst Report provides a glimpse into the current TMS space and outlines the primary benefits of a treasury management system. This latest report dives into how your peers are thinking about treasury and risk management systems.

Emerging technologies are changing the way finance functions operate, opening up new opportunities for treasury and enabling teams to deliver increased value to the organization. As a new decade emerges, executive are looking to...

Emerging technologies are changing the way finance functions operate, opening up new opportunities for treasury and enabling teams to deliver increased value to the organization. As a new decade emerges, executive are looking to artificial intelligence and machine learning as a means for enhancing overall operations.

Treasury & Risk's October Special Report covers the importance of FX automation, detailing the need, benefits and best practices of automating FX risk management.

Treasury & Risk's October Special Report covers the importance of FX automation, detailing the need, benefits and best practices of automating FX risk management.

Economic headwinds and surging market volatility have put CFOs into high alert. To remain successful, companies must invest in new tools and capabilities to spur growth, even as they tighten their belts. Download this...

Economic headwinds and surging market volatility have put CFOs into high alert. To remain successful, companies must invest in new tools and capabilities to spur growth, even as they tighten their belts. Download this new Hackett Group report to learn how a more strategic approach to managing enterprise-wide liquidity, enabled by cloud technology, can help.

In the past, building a case for adopting new technology has proven to be a huge obstacle for treasury and finance teams. However, with emerging technologies such as robotic process automation (RPA) and artificial...

In the past, building a case for adopting new technology has proven to be a huge obstacle for treasury and finance teams. However, with emerging technologies such as robotic process automation (RPA) and artificial intelligence (AI), more companies are seeing the value and impact that technology investments can have on treasury.

Companies that want to grow need money – but even for promising projects, external sources of finance can be difficult and expensive to access. However, for many companies, there is a secret and untapped...

Companies that want to grow need money – but even for promising projects, external sources of finance can be difficult and expensive to access. However, for many companies, there is a secret and untapped source of cash available to them: the estimated $1.1 trillion worth of liquidity trapped inside companies’ accounts and operations.

The landscape of global payments is evolving as concerns of fraud and the desire for more efficient processes increase. To give insight into how treasury organizations are thinking about the future of payments, Kyriba...

The landscape of global payments is evolving as concerns of fraud and the desire for more efficient processes increase. To give insight into how treasury organizations are thinking about the future of payments, Kyriba commissioned Strategic Treasurer to survey more than 300 organizations to gain a more comprehensive view of the global payments environment.

Companies around the globe generally deal in two opposing cash positions - a cash deficit or cash surplus. And in today’s hyper-competitive world, it is more important than ever for companies to grow capital...

Companies around the globe generally deal in two opposing cash positions - a cash deficit or cash surplus. And in today’s hyper-competitive world, it is more important than ever for companies to grow capital or address a surplus of cash in a way that is scalable with their business.

With over 150 practitioners surveyed, the Strategic Treasurer 2019 Supply Chain Finance Survey discusses and tackles the unique factors that are ultimately influencing the evolution of the SCF space, both from a provider and...

With over 150 practitioners surveyed, the Strategic Treasurer 2019 Supply Chain Finance Survey discusses and tackles the unique factors that are ultimately influencing the evolution of the SCF space, both from a provider and user standpoint.

Over the past decade, treasury teams have been relied upon more and more as strategic partners to the business, delivering insight and intelligence to drive greater value. This has driven demand for more sophisticated...

Over the past decade, treasury teams have been relied upon more and more as strategic partners to the business, delivering insight and intelligence to drive greater value. This has driven demand for more sophisticated treasury technology that offers a greater ROI than ever seen before.

In this ebook, How CFOs Can Mitigate the Risk of Payments Fraud, The Hackett Group discusses and addresses the best practices to alleviate the potential impact that fraud could have to their bottom-line and...

In this ebook, How CFOs Can Mitigate the Risk of Payments Fraud, The Hackett Group discusses and addresses the best practices to alleviate the potential impact that fraud could have to their bottom-line and investor confidence...

There are likely many things keeping CFOs up at night, but it’s a good bet that global payments security and efficiency rank high on their list. In this report, senior financial leaders break down...

There are likely many things keeping CFOs up at night, but it’s a good bet that global payments security and efficiency rank high on their list. In this report, senior financial leaders break down their challenges and concerns, and discuss best practices for improving global payments.

Technology is evolving at a rapid pace, to the point that innovations are starting to help treasury teams become more intelligent, deliver greater analysis, and offer a truly digital and automated experience.

Technology is evolving at a rapid pace, to the point that innovations are starting to help treasury teams become more intelligent, deliver greater analysis, and offer a truly digital and automated experience.

Connectivity is key to information transparency. Without bank connectivity, treasury teams act with imperfect cash visibility. With the movement to the cloud and mobile technology, connectivity is simplified and within reach of every organization,...

Connectivity is key to information transparency. Without bank connectivity, treasury teams act with imperfect cash visibility. With the movement to the cloud and mobile technology, connectivity is simplified and within reach of every organization, anywhere in the world.

Supply Chain Finance Analyst Report focuses on understanding how SCF can maximize efficiency and optimize cash resources by examining the leading strategies and technologies employed by companies today.

Supply Chain Finance Analyst Report focuses on understanding how SCF can maximize efficiency and optimize cash resources by examining the leading strategies and technologies employed by companies today.

The Treasury and Risk Management Systems (“TMS”) Analyst Report offers a thorough evaluation of the TMS space by providing the data behind which areas of functionality corporates are planning to invest in, the types...

The Treasury and Risk Management Systems (“TMS”) Analyst Report offers a thorough evaluation of the TMS space by providing the data behind which areas of functionality corporates are planning to invest in, the types of solutions seeing the most traction, and an explanation of the primary benefits derived through the use of such a solution.

The Treasury Aggregator Analyst Report focuses on the financial technology solutions that provide sophisticated bank connectivity, payments, security, compliance, and cash management functionality to corporations.

The Treasury Aggregator Analyst Report focuses on the financial technology solutions that provide sophisticated bank connectivity, payments, security, compliance, and cash management functionality to corporations.

CFOs are facing a number of difficult challenges in today’s increasingly interconnected global economy. CFO Publishing, an Argyle company, asked more than 150+ senior finance leaders in a comprehensive new survey their greatest needs...

CFOs are facing a number of difficult challenges in today’s increasingly interconnected global economy. CFO Publishing, an Argyle company, asked more than 150+ senior finance leaders in a comprehensive new survey their greatest needs from their treasurers in a comprehensive new survey. Their responses were surprising and insightful.

This new e-book is designed to provide a quick, graphical overview into how payment hubs can help increase efficiency, reduce costs and enhance fraud prevention.

This new e-book is designed to provide a quick, graphical overview into how payment hubs can help increase efficiency, reduce costs and enhance fraud prevention.

In this special report from Treasury & Risk, underwritten by Kyriba, security experts give their take on how to stay vigilant in the face of potential attacks, so that a fraudulent payment never occurs.

In this special report from Treasury & Risk, underwritten by Kyriba, security experts give their take on how to stay vigilant in the face of potential attacks, so that a fraudulent payment never occurs.

How can today’s CFOs accelerate growth in the face of an increasingly volatile global business environment? According to The Hackett Group, the answer lies in treasury management technology.

How can today’s CFOs accelerate growth in the face of an increasingly volatile global business environment? According to The Hackett Group, the answer lies in treasury management technology.

Why are 10 CFOs ‘sounding off’ about treasury? Because they feel passionate about the direct and immediate value that that treasury can deliver when properly activated via cloud-based technology.

Why are 10 CFOs ‘sounding off’ about treasury? Because they feel passionate about the direct and immediate value that that treasury can deliver when properly activated via cloud-based technology.

Whether it’s improving global cash visibility, managing FX risk or protecting against fraud, more and more companies are seeing the benefits of treasury management systems. However, in their rush to deploy a TMS, they...

Whether it’s improving global cash visibility, managing FX risk or protecting against fraud, more and more companies are seeing the benefits of treasury management systems. However, in their rush to deploy a TMS, they often overlook proper implementation practices, vastly underestimating the challenges and complexity. This results in their TMS project falling short of what they expected due to running out of time, going over budget, or simply getting overwhelmed.

Global Business Intelligence (GBI), a global research and advisory firm, conducted more than 30 interviews with corporate treasurers who have implemented various early pay programs or are thinking about implementing various programs to provide...

Global Business Intelligence (GBI), a global research and advisory firm, conducted more than 30 interviews with corporate treasurers who have implemented various early pay programs or are thinking about implementing various programs to provide deeper content than press release-type information. This corporate guide is designed to help finance, procurement, treasury and supply chain professionals evaluate the latest trends, issues and perspectives that are impacting buyer-led early pay techniques.

Are you and your team providing the right information and decision support to your board of directors? According to recent findings from a new CFO Research survey, most CFOs are not. This is why...

Are you and your team providing the right information and decision support to your board of directors? According to recent findings from a new CFO Research survey, most CFOs are not. This is why we conducted an online roundtable discussion with three experts -- John Granato, CFO of The Andersons, Inc.; Roxi Wen, CFO of Elo Touch; and Bob Stark, VP of Strategy at Kyriba -- to discuss the critical areas where CFOs need to deliver better information and decision support to the board and CEO.

What are the latest trends in treasury, how do you know if you need a treasury management solution (TMS), and what are the common pitfalls to avoid when selecting and implementing a TMS?

What are the latest trends in treasury, how do you know if you need a treasury management solution (TMS), and what are the common pitfalls to avoid when selecting and implementing a TMS?

Strategic Treasurer’s Strategic Treasurer’s newest analyst report for 2017, “The Definitive Guide to Treasury Aggregation Technology Solutions,” details everything financial leaders need to know about treasury aggregators and how they simplify bank connectivity for...

Strategic Treasurer’s Strategic Treasurer’s newest analyst report for 2017, “The Definitive Guide to Treasury Aggregation Technology Solutions,” details everything financial leaders need to know about treasury aggregators and how they simplify bank connectivity for modern treasurers.

Every CFO wants to be a better strategic business partner to the board of directors and the CEO. In many cases they are, but in certain areas, they are failing to deliver what the...

Every CFO wants to be a better strategic business partner to the board of directors and the CEO. In many cases they are, but in certain areas, they are failing to deliver what the board really wants, according to a new survey from CFO Research in collaboration with Kyriba.

For CFOs charged with safe-guarding corporate coffers, there is no silver bullet that can stop payments fraud in its tracks. Managing and minimizing the problem is a holistic, pro-active effort that combines best practices...

For CFOs charged with safe-guarding corporate coffers, there is no silver bullet that can stop payments fraud in its tracks. Managing and minimizing the problem is a holistic, pro-active effort that combines best practices with real-time detection and monitoring technology.

While many treasurers hope they are well prepared to prevent fraud from occurring, every successful fraud attempt exposes weak controls and detection methods that serve as a learning opportunity for others. This guide offers...

While many treasurers hope they are well prepared to prevent fraud from occurring, every successful fraud attempt exposes weak controls and detection methods that serve as a learning opportunity for others. This guide offers excellent insight into the magnitude of fraud threats, ranging from internal collaborative attempts to external hacks and ransomware schemes.

Corporate fraud is at an all-time high -- is your organization protected? One of the mandates of the modern CFO is to make sure they have secure, end-to-end financial controls in place to prevent...

Corporate fraud is at an all-time high -- is your organization protected? One of the mandates of the modern CFO is to make sure they have secure, end-to-end financial controls in place to prevent both internal and external fraud and protect against loss.

The FinTech revolution is upon us and emerging technologies are already having an impact on corporate treasury and treasury technology. See how AFP's latest Treasury in Practice (TIP) guide highlights the treasury potential of...

The FinTech revolution is upon us and emerging technologies are already having an impact on corporate treasury and treasury technology. See how AFP's latest Treasury in Practice (TIP) guide highlights the treasury potential of distributed ledger technology, machine learning, APIs. (FP TiP Guide underwritten by Kyriba)

Supply chain finance (SCF) is becoming an increasingly popular topic among treasurers and CFO as working capital and risk management take on greater importance for modern firms. Donload this new report from Strategic Treasurer...

Supply chain finance (SCF) is becoming an increasingly popular topic among treasurers and CFO as working capital and risk management take on greater importance for modern firms. Donload this new report from Strategic Treasurer to learn more about the current state of the industry.

Accurate cash forecasting is the lifeblood of any treasury department. All financial decisions, from near-term liquidity to strategic planning, are based on forecasts. However, treasurers continue to struggle creating timely and relevant forecast. Download...

Accurate cash forecasting is the lifeblood of any treasury department. All financial decisions, from near-term liquidity to strategic planning, are based on forecasts. However, treasurers continue to struggle creating timely and relevant forecast. Download this new guide from Treasury Strategies.

In this eBook, Actualize Consulting and Kyriba address the many strategic advantages that an in-house bank provides, the key benefits that range from bank fee savings to increased visibility of corporate-wide FX exposures and...

In this eBook, Actualize Consulting and Kyriba address the many strategic advantages that an in-house bank provides, the key benefits that range from bank fee savings to increased visibility of corporate-wide FX exposures and enhanced controls, as well as the must-dos and dont's for a successful in-house bank launch. Considering if an in-house bank is right for your organization? This eBook is right for you!

The modern treasurer now manages an expanded risk profile with increasingly technical compliance challenges and increasingly sophisticated instances of cyber-crime. Meanwhile, strategic cash management, optimizing working capital and centralizing payments among others remain top...

The modern treasurer now manages an expanded risk profile with increasingly technical compliance challenges and increasingly sophisticated instances of cyber-crime. Meanwhile, strategic cash management, optimizing working capital and centralizing payments among others remain top priorities. Download this eBook to gain insight into seven competitive advantages and the the available tools, techniques and technology you can utilize to overcome those challenges.

Knowing what to expect is key to any successful implementation. At Kyriba, we’ve created the best-in-class team and implementation framework – enabling you to transition smoothly to your new system, with less stress and...

Knowing what to expect is key to any successful implementation. At Kyriba, we’ve created the best-in-class team and implementation framework – enabling you to transition smoothly to your new system, with less stress and more efficiency. In this guide, you'll find the keys to quick and seamless implementation, including our certified team Predictable methodology Support after Go-Live. Kyriba is committed to providing an experience that ensures the ongoing success of each and every customer. From well-defined milestones, a clear roadmap, to post-implementation support, this e-book describes how our approach can make your implementation experience as smooth and efficient as possible.

Securing bank connectivity has never been more important as reported fraud attempts focused on infiltrating payment workflows and stealing banking information are on the rise. Thankfully, in the case of bank connectivity, implementing better...

Securing bank connectivity has never been more important as reported fraud attempts focused on infiltrating payment workflows and stealing banking information are on the rise. Thankfully, in the case of bank connectivity, implementing better security protocols to reduce the threat of fraud and cybercrime is very achievable.

This research report, produced by Ardent Partners and underwritten by Kyriba, details the true value of supply chain finance (SCF), covers the opportunities SCF programs can bring, as well as provides a framework for...

This research report, produced by Ardent Partners and underwritten by Kyriba, details the true value of supply chain finance (SCF), covers the opportunities SCF programs can bring, as well as provides a framework for enterprises seeking to leverage this financial solution.

Kyriba and the UK's Association of Corporate Treasurers conducted their fourth annual survey in early 2016 into corporate treasury community's concerns, challenges and priorities. Findings are based on the insights and opinions of a...

Kyriba and the UK's Association of Corporate Treasurers conducted their fourth annual survey in early 2016 into corporate treasury community's concerns, challenges and priorities. Findings are based on the insights and opinions of a cross-section of 332 finance and treasury professionals from companies of all sizes and geographies. Download the report to learn more about the challenges your peers are facing, such as lack of resources and growing operational complexity, more onerous compliance requirements, and an expanding role of treasurer. Increasingly, not only are treasurers concerned with the ‘traditional’ treasury issues of liquidity and risk, but their skills are in demand to take the lead in working capital optimization, and to play a more strategic role in the business. Find out how treasurers are responding to and embracing these challenges, and some of the factors that are driving success.

Treasury management solutions, especially cloud solutions, enable treasurers to provide a higher level of risk management, including disaster recovery and business continuity planning; strategic cash forecasting, and improved currency exposure management. Find out more...

Treasury management solutions, especially cloud solutions, enable treasurers to provide a higher level of risk management, including disaster recovery and business continuity planning; strategic cash forecasting, and improved currency exposure management. Find out more in this report the benefits of a TMS, beyond the basics of time savings and productivity.

Treasury is a critical operation within any organization. With Business Continuity Planning, Treasury has yet another opportunity to demonstrate their leadership by ensuring BCP is a core component of treasury’s risk management plan.

Treasury is a critical operation within any organization. With Business Continuity Planning, Treasury has yet another opportunity to demonstrate their leadership by ensuring BCP is a core component of treasury’s risk management plan.

Working capital has traditionally been a zero-sum game in the supply chain, as increased DPO for buyers incurs extended DSO for sellers, often causing friction in the buyer-seller relationship. With the introduction of supply...

Working capital has traditionally been a zero-sum game in the supply chain, as increased DPO for buyers incurs extended DSO for sellers, often causing friction in the buyer-seller relationship. With the introduction of supply chain finance (SCF) tools such as reverse factoring and dynamic discounting, organizations can maintain prompt payments to their suppliers without adversely impacting their own cash flow, and can even use SCF to leverage their own free cash to generate risk-free returns. Integrating treasury management with SCF solutions enables organizations to implement straightforward programs that support their supplier communities, as well as providing tangible benefits for optimizing their own working capital. This ebook outlines some of the key issues for organizations who may be considering implementing SCF, or are simply looking for details of how an SCF program could benefit their organization. Topics include: Key benefits – both to vendors and suppliers – of SCF programs Outlines of programs available How supply chain finance and treasury management can work together

Risk mitigation and regulatory compliance are two of every CFO’s most pressing concerns. The CFO is expected to provide certainty and predictability of cash flow and earnings targets, yet these variables are subject to...

Risk mitigation and regulatory compliance are two of every CFO’s most pressing concerns. The CFO is expected to provide certainty and predictability of cash flow and earnings targets, yet these variables are subject to daily volatility, and can be impacted by a significant number of internal and external influences. The CFO must also be an expert in compliance, understanding the details of financial regulations, and the nuances of how to most efficiently comply. A treasury management solution (TMS) can provide wide-ranging benefits for a CFO to reduce their exposure to risk and noncompliance, in addition to providing the treasury team with the tools to make more accurate, data-driven financial decisions. This ebook highlights how implementing a TMS can assist the CFO in addressing a number of risk factors, including: Liquidity risk FX volatility Fraud and cybercrime Operational risk Regulatory compliance

This ebook outlines seven of the most critical reasons why treasury professionals in more than 100 countries use Kyriba to manage their organization’s most critical asset. Topics covered in the ebook include: Bank connectivity...

This ebook outlines seven of the most critical reasons why treasury professionals in more than 100 countries use Kyriba to manage their organization’s most critical asset. Topics covered in the ebook include: Bank connectivity Cash forecasting Security and fraud prevention Creating strategic value See for yourself why Kyriba’s SaaS treasury management system is the most-used TMS, trusted by more than 1,500 of the world’s largest and most respected organizations.

In an environment of regulatory change, globalization, market volatility and emerging business and financial risks, the role of the finance function, and the demands on financial leadership, continue to evolve. With responsibilities increasingly crossing...

In an environment of regulatory change, globalization, market volatility and emerging business and financial risks, the role of the finance function, and the demands on financial leadership, continue to evolve. With responsibilities increasingly crossing borders, regulatory and financial infrastructures, business cultures, languages and time zones, global leadership has become the cornerstone of the CFO role. This ebook outlines some of the key questions that CFOs need to ask, in order to position their organization for maximum growth. Topics covered include: The need for 100% cash visibility How the finance function competes The impact of trapped cash Financial risk management

Lack of visibility over cash balances and risk exposures is cited year after year in industry surveys as treasurers’ top priority and biggest challenge. This ebook outlines straightforward steps that corporate treasurers can take...

Lack of visibility over cash balances and risk exposures is cited year after year in industry surveys as treasurers’ top priority and biggest challenge. This ebook outlines straightforward steps that corporate treasurers can take to achieve 100% visibility on global cash balances.

With the growth of SaaS solutions in treasury, it seems that everyone is clamoring to be “in the cloud,” but not all solutions are the same. This guide helps you clear up the vocabulary and...

With the growth of SaaS solutions in treasury, it seems that everyone is clamoring to be “in the cloud,” but not all solutions are the same. This guide helps you clear up the vocabulary and help you understand why the distinction matters. There are many software providers in the treasury software industry masquerading as true SaaS vendors, so it is important to help you find the wolf in sheep’s clothing.

In the wake of Basel III and a highly volatile FX market, effective cash forecasting has become even more critical for treasurers. Read valuable insight from a number of treasury and banking veterans into...

In the wake of Basel III and a highly volatile FX market, effective cash forecasting has become even more critical for treasurers. Read valuable insight from a number of treasury and banking veterans into how organizations can optimize their cash forecasting process, and drive meaningful business value. This special report from Treasury & Risk magazine features thought leaders from organizations including Citi, Deutsche Bank, Kyriba and Treasury Strategies, discussing cash forecasting best practice, as well as advice for developing, executing and measuring successful cash forecasting programs.

Cash forecasting is an art that is rarely perfected. Every organization talks about forecasting more effectively, but few allocate sufficient people, time, and technology to build an effective program. Understanding the importance of an accurate cash...

Cash forecasting is an art that is rarely perfected. Every organization talks about forecasting more effectively, but few allocate sufficient people, time, and technology to build an effective program. Understanding the importance of an accurate cash forecast that can be relied upon for key financial decisions is critical to making the right investments in forecasting. This ebook gives practical advice for treasurers to develop a cash forecasting program that benefits not just the treasury team, but across the organization. It’s essential reading for anyone who is looking to take their treasury program to the next level and drive meaningful value.

This eBook will explain the benefits of implementing a payment hub, shared services, or a combination of the two, as well as solutions to improve workflow processes and mitigate payment fraud, which is the...

This eBook will explain the benefits of implementing a payment hub, shared services, or a combination of the two, as well as solutions to improve workflow processes and mitigate payment fraud, which is the most dangerous threat to a treasurer’s reputation and career. Every day, new stories emerge about hackers successfully stealing from corporates through sophisticated social engineering techniques that specifically prey upon exposures in payment workflows. With this ebook, the CFO and treasury professionals will gain a deeper understanding of how centralizing payments can reduce risk, add control, and maximize visibility of global payments.

Consistent accurate cash flow forecasting is arguably the holy grail of corporate treasury. From securing liquidity to internal customers to support their local business, to providing free cash flow guidance and variance analysis to...

Consistent accurate cash flow forecasting is arguably the holy grail of corporate treasury. From securing liquidity to internal customers to support their local business, to providing free cash flow guidance and variance analysis to the board of directors and investors, to preparing scenario cash flow analysis to support future M&A, share buy-back or dividend strategies, corporate treasurers are tasked with a tremendous responsibility to predict the future cash flow performance of their organization. For an organization’s cash forecasting program to be optimized, there are six critical questions that every treasurer should ask themselves. Download this ebook to learn how to prepare yourself effectively.

Hear from experts at Kyriba and e5 Solutions how to prepare your organization for eBAM. This special report, developed by Treasury & Risk magazine, contains a number of features and essays from thought leaders...

Hear from experts at Kyriba and e5 Solutions how to prepare your organization for eBAM. This special report, developed by Treasury & Risk magazine, contains a number of features and essays from thought leaders in the industry, on topics ranging from the true value that eBAM will deliver to corporates, to innovations in payments and how this could impact businesses.

Treasury departments around the world have been given the mandate of delivering real business value across the organization. The first step toward achieving this is to transform the treasury function from reactive and transaction-oriented...

Treasury departments around the world have been given the mandate of delivering real business value across the organization. The first step toward achieving this is to transform the treasury function from reactive and transaction-oriented to proactive and strategic in nature. Renowned experts from across the Big Four, banks, analysts, treasury consultancies and a broad range of global organizations offer insight on a wide of topics essential to the modern treasury and finance leader. If you want to drive more value for your organization, download this informative and insightful ebook to learn from industry leaders how to become a proactive, strategic, business partner. Themes covered in the ebook include: Thinking more strategically Effectively managing risk to become a more proactive treasury Documenting your treasury vision Centralizing your treasury Automating, innovating and analyzing

There is a broad range of both internal and external threats that face the integrity of an organization’s corporate cash. In order to understand how your organization can become more secure, it’s critical to...

There is a broad range of both internal and external threats that face the integrity of an organization’s corporate cash. In order to understand how your organization can become more secure, it’s critical to know what vulnerabilities you may be exposed to, and how you can counter them. This eBook shows how Kyriba's SaaS treasury management system can help your company become more secure in the war on fraud.

Kyriba and the UK's Association of Corporate Treasurers conducted a survey in early 2015 into treasury teams' use of technology, strategic input into the business and key issues that they face. The report provides...

Kyriba and the UK's Association of Corporate Treasurers conducted a survey in early 2015 into treasury teams' use of technology, strategic input into the business and key issues that they face. The report provides detailed data on technology use, strategic input and productivity of companies with revenues from under £100 million to over £10 billion. This report is an invaluable tool for anyone who is interested in learning about how fraud can impact the organization, how improved productivity is achievable through the use of treasury management technologies, or would simply like to see how their treasury team measures up against their peers.

Learn from experts at Kyriba, Deutsche Bank and Citi how to optimize your organization’s liquidity. This special report, developed by Treasury & Risk magazine, contains a number of features and essays from thought leaders...

Learn from experts at Kyriba, Deutsche Bank and Citi how to optimize your organization’s liquidity. This special report, developed by Treasury & Risk magazine, contains a number of features and essays from thought leaders in the industry, on topics ranging from reducing the cash conversion cycle, to receivables management and the impact of regulatory chance on liquidity management.

As globalization increases, treasury has become an increasingly international operation. However, the practices and regulation of treasury are not uniform across the globe. What may be viewed as best practice in one country may...

As globalization increases, treasury has become an increasingly international operation. However, the practices and regulation of treasury are not uniform across the globe. What may be viewed as best practice in one country may not be appropriate in other markets. This has implications both for North American companies looking to expand globally, and also for foreign companies planning to establish or acquire North American business. Treasury teams need to ensure that their cash management processes are optimized for all markets, to both ensure the smooth running of their treasury operations, as well as complying with local regulations. This comprehensive guide provides essential information for any treasury team that is looking to enter new territories, or already has an international presence, but wants to ensure that it’s adhering to best practices worldwide.

Cash visibility will continue to be the foremost objective for corporate treasury teams in 2015, as better accuracy of current and projected cash balances enables more effective  investment, deployment, and protection of cash from...

Cash visibility will continue to be the foremost objective for corporate treasury teams in 2015, as better accuracy of current and projected cash balances enables more effective  investment, deployment, and protection of cash from risk exposures. Innovative treasurers will continue to strive for improvement through streamlining internal processes, minimizing financial costs for external borrowing and overdrafts, not to mention optimizing returns on surplus cash, with direct and indirect impact on the creditworthiness of the enterprise and interest income/expense performance. Learn how you can improve your organization's cash visibility in order to make more informed, strategic decisions for deploying corporate cash.

A reality that pervades the treasurer’s office in multinational and domestic corporations alike is that reliable cash forecasting, even in the short term, is extremely difficult to achieve in practice. Accurate cash forecasting always...

A reality that pervades the treasurer’s office in multinational and domestic corporations alike is that reliable cash forecasting, even in the short term, is extremely difficult to achieve in practice. Accurate cash forecasting always ranks highly among corporate treasurers’ priorities, but few treasurers can attain the high levels of cash visibility and usage that will be achieved when a truly effective short term forecasting solution is in place. Read this white paper to learn what common challenges treasury department faces​, where they typically make mistakes, and what they can do to deliver short term cash forecasting best practice.

Companies ranging from Target to J.P. Morgan have recently been impacted by corporate financial fraud, and it remains a serious issue. By failing to implement effective technology and processes, many organizations continue to leave...

Companies ranging from Target to J.P. Morgan have recently been impacted by corporate financial fraud, and it remains a serious issue. By failing to implement effective technology and processes, many organizations continue to leave themselves to both internal and external threats. This white paper outlines some of the key issues facing treasury teams, and offers advice on how they can reduce their exposure to financial fraud, through technology and process improvements.

Changing technology, growing global commerce and new monetary policies are requiring corporations to rethink or re-imagine the role of treasury in a post-recession world, as well as what tools will power this function. ​...

Changing technology, growing global commerce and new monetary policies are requiring corporations to rethink or re-imagine the role of treasury in a post-recession world, as well as what tools will power this function. ​ This white paper, developed exclusively for Kyriba by analyst and ZDNet contributor Brian Sommer, ​outlines  how new technology and approaches can help treasury teams navigate the new economy.