Payments - from a pool of costs to a competitive advantage
Optimum cash, liquidity and risk management is becoming increasingly important in the execution of bank and customer payments – especially in view of the restrictive lending policies resulting from the financial crisis. Extensive changes for banks and corporations in terms of payments can also be expected in coming years because of the following requirements:
More efficiency and flexibility in payments: Consolidation in the payments market and cost pressure as a result of tougher competition coupled with lower margins is forcing banks and corporations to rethink their payment strategies.
Payments as a basic service for cross-selling and customer loyalty: Customers expect more services and products that are tailored to their specific needs – for banks this opens up an opportunity for cross-selling and increased customer loyalty.
Increasing standardisation: Standards such as SWIFT, SEPA or ISO 20022 support the increasingly automated processing of pan-European and international payments. Banks and corporations are offered new opportunities for cross-country harmonisation of processes and systems. Payment units can be merged – for more quality and reduced use of resources.
Legal requirements: Initiatives in international and European payment systems to prevent illegal transactions, to maintain a competitive edge or for consumer protection force banks to make continuous changes.
Optimised payments save time and money
Optimising payment transactions produces many advantages – the two most important are:
1. Lower costs: Standardised and easily adaptable processes in payments are less prone to errors and are cheaper.
2. More resources for new products: The less effort expended on payments, the more free resources there are for customer support and for establishing new services that provide added value and competitive advantages.
Cirquent – your archITect for Payments
For customer excellence and operational excellence the archITects from Cirquent align your business processes and system landscapes in payments more to your customers. At the same time, we aim for more flexibility in the processes – with lower costs.
Trust the sound expertise of our consultants in the following areas:
- Payments system (correspondent bank clearing, TARGET2, EBA-EURO1, EBA-STEP2, EMZ, SCL)
- Cash management (cash concentrating, pooling, netting, overnight investment, notification services)
- SEPA (SEPA Credit Transfer, SEPA Direct Debits, SEPA for Cards and follow-up initiatives such as E-Mandates, E-Invoicing and E-Payments)
- SWIFT (SWIFT for Corporates, Exceptions & Investigations, MX Migration)
- ISO 20022 (pain, pacs, camt processes and XML format)
- TARGET2-Securities (European securities processing in Central Bank money)
- Mobile payments (payments via mobile phone)
- Cards & payments (credit cards, debit cards)
