Tom Alford
Deputy Editor, Treasury Management International
Articles
Kingfisher France Targets Big Baskets with BNP Paribas’ Unique A2A Payments Solution
When Europe-wide retailer Kingfisher Group wanted to find a way for higher-spending customers of its Castorama and Brico Dépôt retail home-improvement outlets in France to pay for their goods, BNP Paribas responded...
Breaking New Ground
The pace of payments technology development across APAC is breath-taking. Treasury must understand the scale and significance to harness the benefits.
Is a Treasury Tech Self-Build Feasible?
Treasury is an increasingly technology-enhanced function, and some treasurers have taken their involvement to the next level, building their own solutions. In the company of those who have travelled this path, we...
API Days: From Talk to Action
Since the first APIs started appearing in the bank-to-treasury space a few years ago, driven in part by the open banking revolution, there has been much talk of their transformational power. We consider the reality...
United We Stand: Tackling Cybercrime Together
Cybercrime and fraud are on the rise and new attack vectors are emerging with alarming frequency. Nicolas Trimbour, Head of Fraud Prevention and Chief Data Officer for Cash Management, BNP Paribas, and Laurent Sarrat,...
How Buyers and Suppliers Can Ride Out Supply Chain Storms
Few could fail to acknowledge the impact of recent supply chain disruptions. But how can businesses large and small manage events that are often outside their direct control? Bringing together its experts from...
BNP Paribas Connects Webasto Korea to the Global Family
When Germany-headquartered international automotive supplier Webasto Group decided to acquire its long-standing Korean joint venture partner Donghee, some major changes were needed within the local finance function....
Real-Time Transformation: Creating a Connected Financial Office
When data flows are connected, it’s so much easier to make quick and accurate decisions. This is the principle behind the emerging notion of the connected financial office. But how can finance teams achieve the level...
RPA in Treasury: Making Friends with Robots
By Tom Alford, Deputy Editor, TMI On behalf of those yet to explore robotic process automation, we ask a brace of technologists to reveal its real advantages and limitations, and speak to one business expert whose...
Maintaining ESG Momentum at the Heart of Treasury
While sustainability has risen up the corporate agenda at a rapid pace, and many treasurers have taken its practices onboard, there is still more work to be done on both sides of the balance sheet. Two senior...
Asyad Group: Full Speed Ahead with Bottomline for Treasury
Evolving from an almost entirely manual treasury set-up to one where the latest technology is being deployed has advantages far beyond process efficiency. TMI talks to Muhsin Alrustom, Group Chief Financial Officer,...
We Need a Better Solution: A Treasurer’s Legacy Tech Escape Plan
The phrase ‘legacy technology’ may invoke images of ancient and unstable IT systems that must be replaced as soon as possible. But is this always the case, and how easy is it to move away from such systems? We...
A Tale of Two Treasuries
A Guide to Successful M&As Mergers and acquisitions are never guaranteed success at any stage of the process. For their part, treasurers will typically face the practicalities of integration and transition, this...
SCF Optimisation in Three Words: Supplier Relationship Management
Treasury and procurement should be strong partners, especially when it comes to managing supply chain finance. Yet despite the advantages for all parties of such programmes, often there are not enough hours in the day...
How to Gain Visibility and Take Control of Payments and Cash
When it comes to payments, cash, liquidity and spend management, bank system independence is both desirable and achievable. Coupa’s Rajiv Ramachandran, Senior Vice President, Product Strategy & Management, Coupa...
The Future By Design
Lim Soon Chong took over as DBS’ Group Head of Global Transaction Services on 1 August replacing John Laurens, who will be retiring at the end of the year. Lim, who also continues in his role as Head of Digital for...
The High-Flyer With His Feet On The Ground
My Life in Treasury: Andrea Sottoriva Group Treasurer and Finance Director, SITA Some career paths appear random while others seem to plot a made-to-measure course. And then there are those people who know how to...
The Thrill of the New
My Life in Treasury: Patrick Kunz Patrick Kunz is an interim treasury and finance consultant. With experience in abundance to share with his clients, he understands that adaptability, a passion for learning, an...
All-Seeing AI: The Facts About Real-Time Cash Forecasting
A real-time view on corporate cash and liquidity positions has become crucial to optimal decision-making. Yet for many companies still struggling to aggregate their siloed data sources, this might as well be a notion...
Changing Power and Powering Change
The automotive sector is in the midst of great change as motive power switches progressively from the internal combustion engine to electric. DBS, which is involved in financing this revolution in Asia, talks to TMI...
Making Machine Learning Work for Treasury
Machine learning is often seen as the panacea for all modern business challenges. However, while it can be a very useful ally, it won’t fix everything – treasurers will still need to make judgment calls. In the...
Payments Tech: Delivering Strategic Advantage
The payments space has been put to the test over the past 18 months or so as businesses continue to face up to the challenges of the pandemic and intense commercial pressures. As new channels of operation and...
A Tidal Force
My Life in Treasury: Inês Faden da Silva As Group Treasurer for Tideway, the utility behind London’s new 25km ‘super sewer’, Inês Faden da Silva is helping to make a positive impact on current and future...
Marketplace Heroes
How Treasurers Can Keep the Cash Flowing Freely Online marketplaces are increasingly seen as one of the most effective ways of leveraging customer and seller relationships. A successful ecosystem requires the...
Building a Better Cash Forecasting Toolkit
Without effective forecasting, companies are essentially flying blind into the future. We look at the role of new technology evolving to help tackle this challenge. While much of the finance function has digitised...
TIS EPO: Reimagining the World of Enterprise Payments
Treasury Intelligence Solutions’ (TIS) Enterprise Payment Optimization (EPO) takes a vital process, removes its complexities, and improves visibility for every participant in the chain. Stating such a goal is...
Crypto: Can it Ever Be Right for Treasury?
In an era where arguably even normally dependable gilts have shifted from being ‘risk-free returns’ to ‘return-free risks’, have cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin finally become viable assets? Or has recent...
Schuldschein: Helping SITA Rebuild the Airline Sector
When global air transport infrastructure provider SITA was seeking to extend its cash buffers, Germany’s Schuldschein market caught the eye of its Group Treasurer and Finance Director, Andrea Sottoriva. TMI talks to...
Beyond Technology in Treasury: Leveraging Community Intelligence
Running an efficient, data-driven global treasury is not just a technology play: it’s also about leveraging “community intelligence” and group-wide collaboration. Sounds too involved? It’s easier than you...
From Cash Pools to Clean Energy
Triple-Layered Cash Pool Providing China Three Gorges with Overseas Funds Control CORPORATE RECOGNITION AWARDS Best Cash Pooling Solution - Highly Commended When it comes to demonstrating best...
Regulatory Round-up with the EACT
The European financial regulatory environment is one of the most homogenised in the world and yet it still forces corporate treasurers to stay constantly alert for local nuances, revisions and wholesale changes. With...
BNP Paribas’ BENEtracker gives L’Oréal’s Beneficiaries Visibility on Incoming Payments
When none of the different parties of an international payment transaction knows where a payment is in transit, fixing any delays is a challenge. L’Oréal, with support from BNP Paribas has created a simple solution...
Payment Tech Uptake Post-Covid-19 ‘Surprising’ says Deutsche Bank Survey
A new survey by Deutsche Bank of over 200 European treasurers and CFOs highlights the renewed vigour with which new payments technology is being adopted in the wake of the pandemic. TMI asks report author, Marion...
Connectivity Means Continuity
Calastone Connect Forum 2020 Calastone’s Connect Forum 2020 brought together a quartet of treasury professionals to discuss the role of technology in enabling more efficient cash management while managing...
Never a Dull Day
My Life in Treasury with Jeannot Jonas, Assistant Treasurer, Cash & Capital Markets at Carrier Global Corporation Carrier Global Corporation is an $18.6bn S&P 500 company and a global provider of sustainable...
Recipe for Success: Building a New World-class Treasury during Lockdown
When Patrick Kunz, Interim Treasury & Finance Consultant, started at Takeaway.com, the treasury function did not exist. Building one from scratch is the dream scenario for many treasurers. But when – on only the...
A Ringside Seat on Change
My Life in Treasury with Anthony J. Carfang, Managing Director, The Carfang Group Anthony Carfang has a distinguished background in consulting, writing, speaking, thought leadership and advocacy in the areas of...
Is it Time to Appoint a Chief Liquidity Officer?
In the current trading environment, where companies really need to have both acute visibility over their financial assets, and the most effective plans to manage them, we ask if the time has finally come for the Chief...
Paper Cuts: Rio Tinto Leverages Blockchain for Trade
With the first fully digital, blockchain-secured end-to-end letter of credit transaction between Nanjing Iron & Steel and Rio Tinto complete, TMI asks Rio Tinto’s Michel Alves, Customer Service Manager, Iron Ore...
ION Treasury: Creating Real-World Opportunities for a Digital Future
Treasurers have much to gain from a co-ordinated programme of digitalisation. With some forethought and planning, the benefits of advanced technologies are there for the taking, says Michael Kolman, Chief Product...
FX Hedging Strategies for 2021 and Beyond
As new processes and technologies are called upon to help businesses navigate turbulent waters post Covid-19, foreign exchange hedging strategies will need to change too. The latest survey from Kantox, in partnership...
Flying Start: Taming SITA’s Vast and Complex Payments Set-up
As a specialist in air transport communications and information technology, SITA is present in just about every country on the planet. With on-the-ground support for its airline and airport clients an essential part of...
Inbound Payments Tracking: A Game-Changer in the Making
With SWIFT’s cross-border inbound tracking service for gpi becoming the latest addition to the treasurer’s toolkit, Nicolas Cailly, Deputy Head of Payments & Cash Management, Societe Generale, explains the new...
