Published: January 01, 2011
Putting risk management first – Why RBS remains the bank of choice
In the current economic climate, risk management remains a key strategic focus for RBS, and an important concern for our clients. We support best practice in risk management to ensure that any services we offer our clients not only satisfies their requirements but is engineered to remain competitive as their business grows.
At RBS, we have looked at widening our product capabilities to make sure that all of our services come with risk management tools. Frequently, this means treasurers are provided with more detail and an easier way to monitor cash balances regionally. By providing clients with a more sophisticated and streamlined management information, we enable them to make more risk conscious decisions.
Our regular discussions with corporate treasurers and CFOs highlight the fact that counterparty risk, the cost and availability of credit and the preservation of value remain high on their agenda. In the current economic climate, treasurers are favouring multi-banking in order to spread their company’s exposure to counterparty risk, and they are looking to technology to deliver this efficiently, without reducing the visibility of data, control, convenience or cost effectiveness.
We support best practice in risk management to ensure that the services we offer our clients not only satisfy their current requirements but are engineered to remain competitive as their business grows.
Continued innovation
The control and transparency that automation of processes delivers are certainly valued by treasurers, along with cost effectiveness and efficiency. For example, where a portal is used, changes to treasury and investment policies and limits for authorisation and execution of investments can be immediately implemented. Similarly, automating liquidity management through cross-border or in-country sweeps reduces the opportunity for mismanagement or fraud on company accounts.Our discussions with treasurers demonstrate that incremental improvements in the use of technology can deliver important risk management benefits, as well as increased efficiency and cost effectiveness. Whenever manual processing is eliminated or data mining time reduced, opportunities for loss are also reduced, and treasurers gain more time to use their expertise to ‘future-proof’ their treasury operations.
There’s an ever-stronger demand for company boards to understand and receive frequent updates on financial risks and strategies, including more detail on day-to-day financial operations and future cash flows. Treasurers have confirmed a significant increase in both the detail and frequency of reports they prepare for their boards, with the spotlight particularly on liquidity and debt funding as well as counterparty risks.
Stronger corporate governance
In addition to formal reporting, treasurers say they are responding to an increasing frequency and range of ad hoc enquiries from their boards – such as questions about counterparties or greater detail on internal matters such as pension provisions. Our discussions with treasurers show they are most interested in pragmatic, transparent solutions that will help them cut through the complexity of the current environment in which they must operate.
At RBS, we have looked at widening our product capabilities to make sure that all of our services come with risk management tools. Frequently, this means treasurers are provided with more detail and an easier way to monitor cash balances regionally. By providing clients with a more sophisticated and streamlined management information, we enable them to make more risk-conscious decisions in a timelier manner. We also help to support corporate requirements with rich data in standard formats and automated processing. Every reduction in manual tasks frees time and focus for other important or strategic treasury tasks.
In this climate, we continue to revolutionise our approach. Our clients trust us to help them develop solutions that address their needs. Our innovation and market leadership in risk management practices is strengthening yet further, and we continue to leverage this around the world.
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