Growing Need for

Modest STP in Trade

Finance Operations
The trade finance business is considered to be one of
the most complex areas of wholesale banking, with as
many as 12 parties getting involved at different points
in an end-to-end transaction. With fluctuations and
uncertainties in the global economy, banks are under
immense pressure to perform and provide high quality
service to their corporates clients. As a result, the
trade finance business is moving towards processing
paperless transactions with minimal manual
intervention. To fulfil the dream, the deciding factor is
the availability of high quality data, coupled with
automation in banks, corporates and across all the
entities participating in a transaction.
In practice, it is difficult to achieve 100% automation
or straight-through processing (STP) across all the
entities in a trade finance ecosystem. But it has
become imperative for banks to have a certain level of
automation, in order to reduce their overall cost,
improve business processes, compress the physical
and financial supply chains, and increase their market
share. The top 20 banks in trade finance account for
55% of market share, while the remaining 45% is
spread across another 400 banks.
Hence the question arises, what is the acceptable
level of STP for banks participating in a trade finance
transaction?
Current Trade Operations
A bank’s trade operation is an important department
as a supporting line of business. Similar to cash
management or foreign exchange (FX) departments,
it is important for high-value corporate customers and
their banking relationships.
The trade business has not changed much in the past
hundred years and still involves various parties that
work together to move goods and transfer funds
around the world. Banks play a key role and act as
intermediaries providing risk mitigation and settlement
services, while ultimately striving for a competitive
advantage over other banks.
For the majority of banks, the cost of having a trade
finance department is high because of manual and
inefficient workflow processes. Having multiple non-
integrated trade finance systems, with old
technologies that lack vendor support, further
increases the cost.
Technological advancements have raised the
expectation of corporate clients, who demand more
from their banks and expect a high quality of service
to match their individual needs. These customers now
expect a ‘zero-latency environment’ to meet their
demands for more information. The banks, while
trying to reduce operating costs, are forced to improve
efficiencies to meet customer demands. These may
not be possible with old systems, but may be
achievable with improved technology, which may also
reduce the overall cost and processing time in the
longer term.
Thus moving to an acceptable level of STP – instead
of complete STP – seems to be the most favourable
solution for banks to improve efficiencies and meet
customer demands.
High-level Trade Finance Ecosystem
Figure 1 gives an idea of the different entities that
form an integral part of the trade finance ecosystem,
however there can be many more depending upon
the complexity of the trade. At some point in the
lifecycle of a successful trade transaction, most of
these entities interact at least once, if not multiple
times, with each other.
Figure 1: High-level Trade Finance Ecosystem Diagram

Source: Cognizant
A typical trade finance department has multiple
systems catering to specific products, for example
one system may cater for documentary credits and
guarantees only, whereas others would cater for
collections only. Additionally, these multiple systems
lack scalability and cannot be enhanced beyond a
certain point because of inherent limitations. Hence,
the bank finds it difficult to market new products to its
corporates.
There are advantages and disadvantages of having
multiple systems, but in the long run the cost of
processing a trade transaction using these systems
increases manifold, which at times can form a
substantial part of the operating cost for a trade
operations department. Additionally, these multiple
trade systems have to interact with the legacy
systems in the middle and back office, such as
accounting systems, limits maintenance, static data
maintenance, payment processing systems, etc. This
in turn can increase data redundancies and errors
caused by excessive manual intervention.
The whole setup becomes even more complex when
the suite of trade finance systems needs to interact
with a standard core banking platform in order to carry
out daily settlement. This has an impact on the ledger
balances and, ultimately, on the profit and loss (P&L)
of the bank.
Hence, a bank needs to organise and integrate its
existing infrastructure framework in order to improve
overall efficiencies.
What is an Acceptable Level of STP?
A conceptualised infrastructure framework, when put
into practice along with improved business processes
and modern technology, would involve processing
transactional data electronically across various
systems from the point of initiation through post-
execution to final settlement in real time (or near real
time), with minimal manual intervention.
An ideal situation for a trade operation department
would be to have all the trade data processed
electronically, with the latest technology and without
any manual intervention. This ideal situation may
seem a distant dream, as it would involve time,
resources and financial investment from all the
entities participating in the end-to-end trade lifecycle.
A modest setup, however, would mean that at least
80% of all the transaction are processed and settled
electronically with minimal manual intervention and
errors by all the parties in the trade lifecycle.
Due to advances in technology, which is responsible
for raising the expectations of the corporate clients,
banks are now expected to provide a cohesive and
integrated service to suit individual customer needs.
Many large corporates have implemented enterprise
resource planning (ERP) solutions and are using
electronic trade services to manage their trade
finance transactions.
Another trend is that the banks and corporates are
collectively extending their reach into the financial
supply chain (FSC). On one hand, corporates are
investing in ERP solutions and trying to automate
their internal physical and FSC systems. On the other
hand, banks have become a critical link in the FSC
and are helping the corporates achieve efficiency in
moving their data, documents and funds. Additionally,
banks are now providing solutions that are enabling
corporates to seamlessly connect to the bank in order
to complete their international trade transactions
requests and follow-up activities involved in the
complete lifecycle of a trade.
Challenges in Implementing a Modest Level of STP
The basic question for a bank’s IT department is:
what is exactly needed to implement a modest level of
STP in a trade operations department?
One of the answers is to aim achieve the following:
• Implement an integrated solutions ecosystem.
• Improve the data integrity across many systems.
• Standardise business processes and information
exchange protocols.
According to a study conducted by Forrester
Consulting, a large number of banks indicate that the
option to integrate existing systems internally is not
effective enough to cater to growing business needs
and ever-increasing regulatory requirements.
Whereas implementing new and improved integration
solutions can enable them to automate the manual
processes and effectively provide new services.
Additionally, the legacy/bespoke systems are not
capable of providing real time (near real time)
availability of information now demanded by
customers.
Another challenge for banks is managing the data
available in disparate systems. In situations where a
bank has a large number of legacy and bespoke
systems, the data integrity can be a major issue,
along with the option of integrating the existing legacy
systems. There is much dependency on the
correctness of data, arising from the increase in
volume and the complexity of transactions and
infrastructure. A large amount of time, money and
resources are used to resolve problems arising
because of incomplete/incorrect data.
The final challenge for banks is to standardise the
business processes and information exchange
protocols, whereby the bank’s systems can interact
efficiently internally, with corporate systems and other
entity systems in the entire ecosystem.
Barriers to Implementing a Modest STP
The following are considered to be the main barriers
to implementing a modest STP in a trade operations
department:
• Increasing complexity and trade volumes in cross-
border trades.
• A reliance on internal manual processes.
• A dependency on multiple fragmented and inflexible
systems with incompatible technologies.
• Dependency on data available from many inflexible
systems.
• Systems based on old technologies that lack vendor
support and hence are difficult to integrate.
• Relatively small budgets for improving the overall
processes, processing standards and workflow.
• Lack of improved settlement and reconciliation
systems, which ultimately increases the cost of
processing transactions.
• A greater dependency on multiple data exchange
standards, which greatly affects the data flow
(across entities, systems and networks), data
delivery speed and data quality.
Creating Business Value Using Modest STP
In order to create value-add for the business and the
banking industry as a whole, banks need to have a
two-pronged approach:
1 Short-term value: banks need to look at short-term
initiatives and benefits that they can generate
 after enabling modest STP. This would effectively
address the concerns relating to transaction
speed and cost containment.
2 Long-term value: leveraging short-term initiatives,
banks can create a target operating model that
will effectively address some of the issues
relating to automating processes, improving and
implementing industry standards, and ultimately
helping the bank gear up to adapt to future STP
initiatives.
Some initiatives that a bank can implement to create
value-add for its trade finance operations and its
customers are:
Internet-enabled order management
This ability would provide greater transparency and a
seamless interaction between the corporate and its
bank, whereby the purchase order (PO) data is
received directly from the ERP system and made
available to bank and other parties in the trade cycle.
Additionally, a request for creating a new trade
transaction, sent by the corporate (e.g. issuance of an
import letter of credit (LC) or issuance of import
guarantee, etc) are received and processed
automatically by the bank’s trade finance system with
minimal manual intervention. This in effect provides a
real time (or near real time) information exchange
between parties, thus reducing a lot on the time spent
in manual entry, re-keying of erroneous data, etc.
Integrated and centralised operations
A bank with trade operation spread across the globe
should consider a single integration solution, or try to
integrate their existing suite of trade systems, so that
the global trade data is available centrally. This will
provide flexibility in transaction processing and
management information system (MIS) reporting. A
corporate would thus benefit by getting real-time
information on the status of the transaction.
The following steps are necessary for integrated and
centralised operations:
• Centralised IT support.
• Centralised procedures.
• Centralised risk management.
• Centralised users.
• Implementing standard formats.
There is little doubt that enabling a modest STP
environment will revolutionise the trade operations in
a bank. However, in order to make this more effective,
banks and corporates need to adapt to new standards
of data exchange. The banks need to work closely
with corporates and SWIFT to implement XML and
SWIFT messaging standards of corporate-to-bank
(C2B) communication for trade data exchange. This
would help the corporates submit data independent of
their country of operation and transaction currency.
Outsourcing services
Trade transactions by nature are document intensive.
Banks can look at the possibility of offering
outsourced services and help various members of the
FSC by managing their documents electronically. The
banks with expertise in handling and checking trade
document can store document details electronically
(i.e. after reading a scanned document), carry out
electronic data matching/checking, and provide
reports to corporates and other members in the FSC
ecosystem.
Other initiatives
Other initiatives revolve around integrating the cash
management and trade operations. Disparate
systems can be pulled together into a central solution
where the trade and financial data can be accessed,
stored and reviewed in real time. These initiatives
could be in the areas of managing electronic invoices
(e-invoices) and payments and receivables
management. Statistics show that around 27 billion
invoices are issued in the EU each year and over
85% of those are in paper, which results in around
€480bn being permanently tied up in working capital
as a result of business process inefficiency.
Conclusion
A modest level of STP will deliver many benefits in
the trade finance arena that will help banks turn their
investments into profitable results. Additionally, it will
also help banks become an integral part of the FSC
by increasing their efficiency through a continuous
rationalisation of infrastructure and operations.
Today in the global market, it is necessary that all the
information related to a trade transaction is
transmitted in electronic format, primarily to cut down
the transaction lifecycle and reduce the risk
associated with every trade. While implementing a
modest STP may be challenging for banks, it is the
only way forward for improving business efficiency.
De-risking trade
finance operations: A
transitional approach
The cost of compliance efforts for banks has increased exponentially in
recent years. This is especially true for those banks that are active in
the global trade finance domain, where the overwhelming expectation is
for compliance requirements to become even more complex, strict and
challenging over time.

One US-headquartered bank recently revealed it has reached the

staggering figure of 70,000 employees directly or indirectly involved in
compliance-related activities. In the context of trade finance, a
European-headquartered bank mentioned that its trade finance
operations staff spend at least 50% of their time executing compliance-
related procedures and tasks.

Needless to say, this not only has a significant impact on the pricing and
profitability of trade transactions for banks, it also leads to overwhelming
pressure, fuelled by constant fear of the ‘compliance thundercloud’ ever-
looming over trade operations teams. This because we all know that
when ‘compliance thunder’ strikes, the exorbitant fines imposed by
regulators can potentially put smaller banks out of business overnight,
while similarly creating major challenges for larger global trade banks.

This begs the question: Why is it so labour-intensive coping and

complying with all these requirements and regulations – particularly
when conducting trade finance?

The primary reason may come as a surprise to outsiders. It relates to

the historically tech-averse, ‘traditional’ legacy of trade and trade
finance, a field (still) overwhelmingly dominated by paper documents.
Where most business areas across the finance spectrum have already
undergone a significant paradigm shift in processes, the traditional
world of trade finance continues to rely primarily on paper-based
practices. Nonetheless, this is about to change.

Digitisation – or going paperless – is no longer a hype-fuelled

catchphrase but a legitimate business requirement for any organisation
looking to survive, compete and navigate through all the hurdles faced
when dealing with complex, heavily-regulated trade processes. The
focus has therefore shifted from what some refer to as ‘rip & replace’
digitisation to transition technology instead. Namely, solutions that take
into account current processes, future desired-states, and how to bridge
the gap between the two (while giving equal measure to both), in turn
enabling a structured, speedy yet realistic transition to digital trade!

To that end, we recently launched our CargoDocs ADP (Automated

Document Processing) solution, supporting trade banks in coping with
continued compliance challenges while also enabling a much-needed
transition to paperless trade.

As current trade processes are still largely paper-based – where all key
trade data is ‘locked’ therein – it is crucial for banks to accurately
capture and digitise this data. CargoDocs ADP utilizes powerful OCR
(Optical Character Recognition) capabilities to extract critical data, in
turn combining Natural Language Processing (NLP) and supervised
Machine Learning (AI) to structure data accordingly – enabling
automated document/data-checking and validation plus critical
compliance and trade-based money laundering checks.

Interestingly, banks normally only ever capture around 40-50 key pieces
of information from paper documents for screening purposes, meaning
that most information is not screened at all. Technology that is equipped
with features that screen all data, including data from supporting
documents, while also accommodating for pre-printed wording in
headers and footers, is much more preferable. Experience has shown
that even segments of typically un-screened data can result in
significant compliance hits for trade finance banks.
However, it is possible for technology to go further than enabling regular
compliance checking, crucially addressing Trade Based Money
laundering concerns and spotting suspicious deviations. ADP is
equipped with an interactive Business Intelligence dashboard, where
users can drill down on flagged data, while alerts can be set based on
tailored criteria per bank or even user.

Another major time consuming, and therefore costly, task for trade
finance banks is comparing data against other data. One obvious
example would typically be the examination and cross-checking of trade
documents under Letters of Credit. With the right technology in
place, document data becomes readily available, and , as such,
comparing data between documents becomes extremely simple. What’s
more, the icing on the ‘comparing cake’ is the additional capability of
checking document data against the underlying transaction (the Letter
of Credit) and the governing rules (e.g. the UCP 600).

Make no mistake, de-risking trade finance operations continues to be a

challenging task, as stringent regulatory requirements constantly add
pressure to already-stretched trade operations teams, increasing costs,
delaying transaction lead times and in extreme cases, leading to huge
fines.

Transition technology – which focuses beyond just capturing data but on

the effective use and re-use of data – enables banks to efficiently and
realistically achieve those much-desired cost savings, while also
reducing operational and reputational risk.
For trade banks, it’s never too late to get started on a journey to
digitised, paperless trade. And what better way to kick off than by
tackling those ever-looming compliance thunderclouds, head-on.

The future of banking:

it’s all about sharing
https://www.theglobaltreasurer.com/2017/08/28/the-future-of-banking-its-all-
about-sharing/

Tech-savvy banks and the new wave of disruptors will be the

beneficiaries as banking undergoes a long-awaited
transformation.

Over the past 10 years, technology has driven huge amounts of change
in the finance sector, redefining the very foundations that the industry
was built on. This fintech revolution is being powered by a wave of
disruptive start-ups that are completely reshaping the finance sector,
otherwise known as the ‘root and branch reconfiguration’ of the ageing
banking and financial services industries.

Innovative platforms, apps and services are reshaping financial services

through a sharing economy model, the same kind of collaboration which
is behind the disruption of many industries. Some of the world’s greatest
modern consumer tech developments, such as Amazon’s e-commerce
business model powered by voice recognition, have thrived through
collaboration. This new sharing model between businesses enables
data to flow between companies, making processes more streamlined
and simple for the customer.

Tech-savvy banks along with non-bank companies such as Paypal,

Stripe, Square, Moula and Kabbage are eating into traditional payment
industries – and with it, taking their share of the profits. The digital era of
payments apps, online lending platforms and mobile wallets are all
consumer-facing fintech services that are growing in popularity and
leaving behind traditional banks.

Our company is part of this revolution through its development of a

‘financial web’, in order to provide more than one million small business
customers with the options they need. Layers of the financial web are
already built – it began with banking integrations and is evolving to
include elements of machine learning, alternate lending, payments and
financial data. The company’s accounting platform (system of record)
provides a strong foundation for building out the financial web over the
next decade. For the first time, financial institutions are able to see a
complete view of a small business’ financial data, leading to better
quality advice and services.

As all of their financial data sits in Xero’s cloud, enabling it to know

about its customers’ funding needs, and the banks are sitting up and
noticing. The company works with more than 80 financial institutions
globally as it transforms into a small to medium enterprise (SME)
platform to connect financial institutions, government departments and
large enterprises in real-time. By securely connecting their accounting
platform to their preferred providers, customers can receive same-day
loan approvals (MarketInvoice) and access simpler international
payments (Transferwise) from the providers at the click of a button,
potentially saving thousands of pounds each year.

Xero’s recently-announced partnership with online payments platform

Stripe is a prime example of how companies are collaborating to
improve their customer offerings. By expanding its joint online payment
solution through automated reconciliation, customers are given a
greater choice of payment services, more cash flow control and
enhanced efficiency through automation.

The Stripe reconciliation functionality means when a Stripe payout

comes in through the bank feed, Xero matches the transaction for the
user. All the transactions in Xero are tied to the Stripe statement line
and automatically matched so they can be reconciled with just one click
– all functions that streamline and speed up processes for the customer.

Millennials demand digital

It was nearly 10 years ago that digital-only banks began to emerge, with
Ally launching in the US back in 2008. Benefits for this new generation
of financial institutions include costs saved on brick-and-mortar outlets,
as well as employee salaries. Worldwide, financial regulations have
been beneficial for online banks, and often provide better rates and
lower fees to customers. With the added advantage of their fresh footing
in the industry, these institutions are much more open to change,
innovation and moulding around their customers’ wants.
However, while the millennial generation pines for this flexibility and
ingenuity, digital-only banks struggle to gain the trust of older
generations, who have perhaps been with their current bank for as
much as 15 or 20 years. They wouldn’t consider leaving the safety of
their account for something that is completely alien to them. That’s why
the best of both worlds is needed.

The customer journey

Banks have lacked innovative competition for years, offering varying

packages, interest rates and deals to customers, but nothing has been
truly innovative to challenge the way they operate. This points to a
notoriously lacking part of the banking experience in the guidance a
customer has on their journey – at every turn a customer is often treated
with automated messages and letters through the post.

Automation isn’t set to reduce in the future, but when it comes to the
customer journey, customers will be greeted with a more tailored
approach. For example, Xero’s Advisor Directory, which determines the
user’s location in order to put them in touch with a small business
accountant, bookkeeper, integrator or financial advisor that is a certified
trusted partner. This offers next-level consultancy between a customer
and their finances. With consumer confidence dwindling as a result of
global financial meltdowns, good relations and trust are now more vital
than ever.

Blockchain boom
The next big thing in banking will be the comprehension and utilisation
of blockchain technology – one of the most secure methods to encrypt
financial data to ensure it is stored in a safe environment, and, in future,
enable data to be shared to speed up transactions. Having access to an
open, transparent ledger of bank transactions is useful for regulators,
could help tackle fraud and create a cheaper, more efficient service for
the customer.

Blockchain could allow an open application programming interface (API)

between two corporations that automates the release of a portion of
funds whenever certain parameters are met, such as the shipment of
goods. This is likely to evolve, and it will be exciting to see how banks
go on to develop this technology.

Social media

Lastly, the future of banking will see banks need to become much more
social media savvy. Social media connects people in a way that nothing
else can – imagine if customers felt comfortable enough to contact their
banker through the likes of Twitter and Facebook in order to connect
with them instantly. Our company is already building this connectivity
into its Facebook chat bots to enable users to query their bank balance,
cash flow and more.

Aside from direct messaging, it enables banks to build character – if

banks developed a toolkit for each of their branches to publicise the
community work they do via YouTube, Facebook and Twitter, they
would develop a deeper connection with their local area and improve
their reputation tenfold. It might sound obvious, but it goes a long way.
All in all, we see banking transforming through the use of technology
into a much more tailored, personal and accessible service for the
customer. If traditional banks can capitalise on the progress made by
fintech and establish beneficial partnerships, the future is bright for all
banking businesses – and the consumer is the one who will benefit.

Payments and Cash Management within Trade

Finance

By David Toubkin, Executive Product Director, Trade Finance, Surecomp

Due to sheer volumes, most of the emphasis seen in Banking-related journals as
well as that emanating from organizations such as SWIFT, tends to concentrate on
pure payments processing (sometimes referred to as Clean Payments, Remittances
etc.), covering both domestic and international payments. However, there is still a
relatively high volume of payments which are made within the framework of
traditional Trade Finance instruments including L/C’s, Reimbursements, Standby
L/C’s, Guarantees and Documentary and Clean Collections.

This article seeks to provide pointers as to how they can be handled more efficiently
by banks and also to focus on the issues facing banks wishing to implement
payment systems, and how payment systems can integrate with Trade Finance
Systems.
Finally, this article will touch on the linkage between Trade Finance and Cash
Management, the two areas obviously being closely related.

Handling Payments in Trade Finance Transactions

The way in which trade-related payments are handled very much depends on the
level of automation within the Bank, and, assuming the bank has an automated
Trade Finance System, the way that system is structured. Some systems, such as
Surecomp’s IMEX Trade Finance System, offer highly advanced STP services in
order to maximize the data mapping of payments received via SWIFT. The following
are a few examples:

Letter of Credit Payments

The Negotiating Bank may receive an MT752 message (authorization to Pay, Accept
or Negotiate), in response to an MT750 message sent to the Issuing Bank. If the
Trade Finance System is able to process this message automatically via STP and
route it for approval, no user involvement is required in what is usually a highly labor-
intensive task.

Collection Payments

When the Remitting Bank sends documents to the Collecting Bank, the payment,
either at sight or at tenor, is usually made by the sending of an MT400 message
(possibly with an MT202 Cover Message if no account relationship exists between
the Remitting and Collecting banks). Again, the ability of the Trade Finance System
to automatically process the message and route it for approval results in a
considerable resource saving for the Bank.

Bank-to-Bank Reimbursements

These instruments can be highly profitable for banks which can generate sufficient
volumes of business and are able to process the business with the highest levels of
STP. As a minimum, the Reimbursement System should be able to provide total
STP for the MT740, 742 and 747 messages. In addition, it must be able to handle
Blanket (General) Reimbursement Authorizations with specific bank or country
exceptions, handle Reimbursement Undertakings and be able to automatically
generate Pre-Debit Advices and Nil-Activity Advices to the Bank’s clients.

Exception Handling

No system can currently provide 100% STP due to the facts of everyday life. For
example, banks may add free text to SWIFT messages, accounts may have
changed or been closed etc. The most efficient systems should automatically route
failed STP items to a repair queue, accessible to authorized users, who should have
the ability to directly open the item, repair the invalid data and return the item to the
STP process. An additional facility which can prove highly beneficial is a "Keyword"
database which can be built up by each bank over time, based on their experience.
Such a database can instruct the processing system how to react when certain
words or phrases are found in a specified SWIFT tag, i.e. to continue or halt the STP
process, move a specified value to a specified field etc.

Bank Payment Systems – the Dilemma

Many banks currently have legacy payment systems, and many of them are looking
to increase their business volumes and profitability by upgrading to the latest
technology and functionality. The dilemma facing these banks is whether to try and
leverage the capabilities of their Trade Finance System or alternatively to license a
vendor system (or possibly to develop in-house, although this is hardly an option for
any but the largest financial institutions).

As mentioned above, Trade and Payments are closely linked. For example, an
Incoming MT103 might be a Clean Payment or might be a payment under a
collection sent by the Bank. Furthermore, with the exception of bulk payment
instruments, the techniques required to generate or receive payments under Trade
Finance deals are virtually identical to those required to make and receive stand-
alone customer payments. What differentiates Trade Finance payments from regular
Clean Payments lies mainly in the area of specialized functionality. So what direction
should a bank take which is looking to replace its Payments System?

The fundamental question is how robust is the Bank’s existing or target Trade
Finance System and how easy would it be to integrate the required functionality?
Clearly, the functionality available in a dedicated payments system would be greater
than that currently available in the Trade Finance System. However, if the bank is
able to achieve most of its required functionality through its Trade Finance System,
the result would probably be considerably cheaper. Furthermore, a common platform
could leverage all the existing interfaces which have been developed as well as
enabling consolidated administration of both systems by a single team.

There are several critical aspects which banks need to carefully consider. For
example, a bank with a million or more retail customers may typically only have a
few thousand customers recorded as Trade Finance customers. When an incoming
payment is received for a retail customer, if the Trade system is being utilized for
payments it would need to link to the Bank’s CIF and automatically create the
customer in the Trade System. Another aspect is the identification of customers. In
many banks there are requirements to automatically compare both the account
number used in the Incoming Payment Message as well as the name and address
used prior to processing the payment. As the payment message does not bear any
existing transaction reference number, the correct identification of the beneficiary is
of paramount importance.

Cash Management

Clearly, many payments made by companies around the world are for payments for
goods and services, both domestic and international. The corporate treasurer is, like
his bank counterparts, faced with many options, typically finding that most banks are
offering their own solutions.

Cash Management finds its place among the many products offered by leading
banks on the corporate websites. The most successful ones offer easy to use links
between Trade, Payments and Cash. Unfortunately, vendor systems which attempt
to offer the best of all worlds in a single consolidated system rarely perform to the
complete satisfaction of their users, as each area requires highly specialized
functionality. The optimum solutions would therefore seem to be those which offer
the easiest links and navigation between these products. Corporate customers will
arrive at their own conclusions as to which banks offer the best services, and in the
era of the internet it is relatively easy for the unsatisfied corporate to switch its
business to any place on the globe.

Fusion Trade Innovation

https://www.finastra.com/solutions/transaction-
banking/trade-supply-chain-finance/fusion-trade-
innovation
Seize the opportunity
Capture your share of growing trade and supply chain finance revenues
Take advantage

Many banks’ systems are not ready to support their growth ambitions. But with a continued
focus on STP and a unified approach to trade that supports digitization and client self-service
for both traditional trade and open account, you can take advantage.

Drive revenue growth

Fusion Trade Innovation software drives revenue growth through margin improvement,
market leading service and product innovation. More than 200 banks currently rely on this
Finastra solution to deliver transparency, control and service innovation in their international
and global trade finance businesses. Full coverage for traditional trade finance management
is delivered front-to-back: from corporate online channels to your back office.
 Lead on service agility and innovation
Using our trade finance system, you can rely on automation as a baseline for growth, adding
powerful workflow orchestration, granular service level management and real-time
dashboards to go beyond automation – and lead on service agility and innovation.

Banks have increased trade finance revenues by 89% by automating and scaling their trade
finance business with Finastra

The benefits

 Improve margins
 Grow trade business
 Capitalize on innovation

Finastra Digital
Create the Digital Future of Your Bank

Finastra Digital enables the digital transformation that means financial institutions can
ensure growth driven by strong customer focus. With Finastra Digital, banks can
create frustration-free banking user experience by offering innovative online and mobile
banking solutions. Finastra Digital integrates with Finastra’s financial software solutions, the
broadest range available on the market. Using our solutions, you can deploy mission-critical
technology on-site and in the cloud. Whether you’re launching a new digital bank, driving
growth through digital sales, or innovating and launching new services, Finastra Digital has a
strategic answer.

CUSTOMER ENGAGEMENT
Give your customers the experience they want

By 2021, 3 billion people will be using digital banking. Today’s consumers expect an experience
to match their digital lifestyle. Delivering this means offering a highly personalized, relevant digital
experience that is consistent across channels. Customer engagement and satisfaction is a high
priority.

Better customer experience needs a solid foundation. The first building block is to create
outstanding engagement capabilities, where account holders benefit from personalized and
relevant products and services. Customers want easy, friction-free and consistent interactions
and transactions across all channels.

Finastra’s Digital Engine and Development Kit concept bridges the gap between customization
and upgradeability. Core modules remain untouched during upgrades, ensuring compatibility, and
it avoids vendor lock by permitting you or your trusted partners to carry out implementation
projects on the Digital Channels Platform. With the Digital Development Kit, you can differentiate
and expand your service offerings quickly, while maintaining customizations.