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This is a special episode focused on payments. We’re getting inside the minds of top CFOs and Treasurers to find out how they’re handling payments in this ever-changing financial landscape. We’ll hear from Reed Luhtanen, Executive Director of the U.S. Faster Payments Council, Katherine Edenbach, CFO at Emburse, Benjamin Seal, Vice President of Treasury Services at Cenveo, and more, including some bonus content from Michelle Richardson, SVP and CFO at Plaza Home Mortgages.
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What is a Payments Hub – and Why Do I Need One?

According to a recent WEX Worldwide survey commented on by Treasury Today – 52 percent of organizations admit to being victims of payments fraud. Many times treasury is directly affected, because their payments were compromised, while other times, the treasurer is pulled into the conversation to fix whatever vulnerability was exploited for someone else’s payment. Regardless of how or why, treasury is being asked to provide better payments solutions by the CFO, CIO and CISO. Payment hubs provide that answer, in that they offer the global visibility and standardized controls that are so necessary to ensure that every payment is handled in a consistent manner regardless of geography, payment type or who requested it. Payment hubs, which were the subject of a new e-book, ensure payment workflows comply with the organization’s payment policy. Additional reading: 15 Minute Guide to Payment Hubs This is why CIOs are demanding that payment hubs (depicted below) be implemented and are often asking treasury to take charge. What a payments hub should look like – Here’s a graphical representation of a payments hub, including external inputs, key functions, payment types, connectivity and more.  When treasury does lead the initiative for a payment hub, they found the following benefits: Standardization The key to eliminating unauthorized payments – even if accidental in nature – is to ensure a standardized set of controls that prevail without exception. Controls could include payment approval scenarios, extra layers of authentication, procedures if approvers are remote and/or unavailable, and specific actions if modifications to the payment are required. The organization’s payment policy should be digitized and enforced by the payment hub software to ensure these controls are consistently applied. Payment Screening Many organizations require payments to be screened against sanctions lists prior to sending those instructions to the bank. While this is a good practice, screening should not stop there. Payment scenarios – e.g. payments being made outside of approved countries, first payment to a new bank account, irregular payment amounts, etc. – should also be screened in real-time so that any suspicious payments can be stopped and quarantined in real-time to be reviewed by authorized reviewers. As payments continue to diversify across multiple channels (e.g. wires, ACH, checks, B2P, blockchain) and become more real-time, organizations cannot rely on treasury staff scanning every payment in real-time; nor can they expect their banks to be the last line of defense. More sophisticated solutions including robotic process automation, should be leveraged to provide the best possible protection. Fortunately, such solutions are available within most payment hubs. Visibility Many treasury teams struggle with having complete transparency into all outgoing payments before they happen. This issue magnifies as organizations also adopt new request for payment strategies to improve collections. Treasury isn’t learning about payment activity early enough to make effective cash and working capital decisions. Payment hubs, through the consolidation of all payment activity, can provide that visibility to treasury so they can be certain about what payments need to be funded. With this added level of precision, working capital can be reduced and a greater percentage of total cash reserves can be deployed to meet organizational KPIs. In many cases, this may directly affect the CFO and Treasurer’s bonus attainment. Cost Not lost in the myriad of benefits is the fact that payment hubs reduce the cost of managing payments. There are several different ways:
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*Accepting cookies will allow the podcast player to be displayed. The Future of Easy, Secure, Instant Payments This episode features an interview with Reed Luhtanen, Executive Director of the U.S. Faster Payments Council talking to The Invisible Vault host Bob Stark, Head of Market Strategy at Kyriba. Reed talks about facilitating seamless transactions across a...
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3 Keys for Treasury Success in Asia

Recently, I had the pleasure of learning more about corporate treasury in Asia during visits to our local offices; meetings with clients in Hong Kong, Malaysia, and Singapore; and by attending several treasury conferences. It should be no surprise that corporate treasury is becoming more sophisticated across Asia as firms continue to demand “best of the best” best practices and scalable, easy to use technology. What I found most interesting about treasury in Asia was: Chinese firms are poised to expand internationally – From a treasury perspective, this interest in growing beyond China has heightened interest in treasury technology that delivers onshore/offshore visibility into cash and currency exposures alongside the need to establish more complex treasury structures such as cash pooling to support onshore/offshore sweeps. Chinese firms are continuing to explore establishing regional treasury centers in Hong Kong or Singapore to align with RMB clearing locations. This is an opportunity where treasury best practices are seen as a significant asset by hiring firms. Automation is not the only goal of treasury technology – Asian-based companies are embracing financial and treasury technology, yet are building ROI models and business justification on variables other than just automation and productivity. With costs of FTEs often much lower than we see in Europe or North America, automation is not the solution to increased workloads. As a result, the driver for technology is implementation of best practices, decision optimization (e.g. improved hedging), and support for treasury transformation. Regional treasury centers are becoming more involved in strategic decision making – Organizations that embrace the opportunity to allow Asian treasury teams to manage key functions (e.g. developing pooling structures or designing hedging programs) are able to deliver more strategic value and drive greater bottom line value than those that try to manage all treasury functions from afar. The knowledge and experience being hired into regional treasury centers, especially in Singapore and Hong Kong, rivals and even exceeds treasury talent in other parts of the world. This expertise is obviously in addition to local knowledge and the ability to work face to face with offshore internal and external partners to treasury. Additional reading: Overcoming Cash Forecastng Challenges: Best Practice Tips for Treasurers Treasury organizations that are already well established in the region already know where the right locations are; how to secure experienced staff; and the importance of adopting world-class treasury technology to ensure global visibility over cash, exposures and financial controls. For organizations considering a greater investment in Asia, it is important to: Choose locations that can offer support in English and local languages, with workable time zones that can also overlap with the head office at some point during the day. Locations that have financial proximity to China (e.g. Hong Kong, Singapore, Macau) are critical so your offshore treasury center is a financial gateway into China itself. Secure experienced staff who not only have global treasury experience, but know how to balance this with local expertise. The right people need to be motivated and trained well, earning new opportunities to leverage their growing treasury knowledge Have the right treasury technology in place that supports global requirements, but also local needs (which could be preferred language, local regulations, specific payment or bank account controls, or dashboards that highlight local treasury KPIs). The reduced footprint offered by the cloud helps, as does the ability for a cloud TMS to enable all treasury offices to support each other to deliver a complete business continuity plan. Asia is an opportunity and those treasury teams that embrace it will be on the road to global treasury success.
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