Treasury Innovation on Tap: the ‘as-a-Service’ Revolution

Deutsche Bank wins Global Bank of the Year for Innovation, driven by its flagship in-house banking as a service offering

Throughout 2021, despite the global challenges caused by the ongoing pandemic, Deutsche Bank delivered several cash management innovations. For example, in partnership with Treasury Intelligence Solutions (TIS), the bank has developed a new payment fraud prevention solution. This joint initiative aims to improve the detection of potential fraud before a payment instruction even leaves a corporate treasurer’s system.

Bank Awards

Global Bank of the Year for Innovation

Deutsche Bank

The past year has also seen an accelerated roll-out of instant payments by the bank and its FX4Cash capabilities were also expanded. In addition, Deutsche Bank re-entered the Merchant Solutions market, establishing new value-added offerings for corporates such as split payments for marketplaces, which permit funds to be credited to different sellers within one transaction.

One particular innovation that caught the eye of the TMI judging panel was Deutsche Bank’s innovative Inhouse Banking-as-a-Service (IHBaaS) solution. Introduced at the start of 2021, it significantly lowers the barriers that may have prevented many corporates from reaping the benefits of a centralised treasury setup in the past. As needs vary among corporates, the solution is designed to provide choice and flexibility: whether a treasurer’s priority is to rationalise bank accounts, to consolidate payments and collections or even to simplify existing liquidity management structures. This modularity allows treasurers to use only those functions they need, yet with the option to add additional features when requirements change over time. In summary, treasurers remain in charge of both the scope and pace with which they drive and implement change.

In addition, given that it is a cloud-based offering, it comes without the efforts that are typically associated with deploying new technology solutions onsite, let alone the need for its own IT resources. “This greatly alleviates the burden of the past, when a lot of treasury projects could not get off the ground because of the significant resources and budgets they would have consumed,” says Christof Hofmann, Head of Corporate & Payment Solutions, Deutsche Bank. 

“Our Inhouse Banking-as-a-Service offering is leveraging the technological advancements of recent years and makes sophisticated technology now much more accessible to our corporate customers. It provides treasurers with a toolkit that can help them to realise significant efficiencies. Effectively, the central treasury team gains a fully-fledged cash and liquidity management tool that enables them to consolidate and operate your subsidiaries’ cash management activities on a single platform.”

Indeed, there is a wealth of features that can be adapted to the individual needs of each client, ranging from liquidity and FX risk management to tweaking the virtual account hierarchy. And for those companies which already have an IHB set-up, the platform offers complementary services such as detailed reporting at entity level, including virtual account reporting or interest settlement.

The TMI judges appreciated the fact that this solution means that IHBs are now achievable for more and more corporates – not just those with the largest resources. And thanks to IHBaaS, companies now easily can streamline payment processes, simplify liquidity management and automate inter-company loan and interest management.

A crowning achievement

Together, these cash management developments, which are helping corporate treasurers to better manage their daily operations and to benefit from digital innovation, are worthy of the title of TMI’s Global Bank of the Year for Innovation 2021. 

“We are delighted to be recognised by TMI as the global driver of innovation,” says Ole Matthiessen, Global Head of Cash Management. “At Deutsche Bank Corporate Bank, we are excited about shaping the future of financial services. This Award demonstrates our focus on building innovative solutions and introducing market-leading services to empower our clients in a digital world.”