In Brief: Bank of Boston Adds Latin American Services

Bank of Boston Corp. is moving into cross-border cash management and payment services in Latin America.

The bank announced Monday that it has launched a cash management service in Uruguay designed to improve cross-border asset management for multinationals and large regional companies.

Nancy Russell, division executive in Boston for global cash management sales, said the service allows companies in the region to optimize their liquidity by using excess cash in some countries to offset borrowing needs in other countries via a U.S. dollar account in Uruguay.

The bank also launched a Latin American electronic payment service. The Multipay service allows companies in Argentina, Chile, and Brazil to create payment instruction on computers in their offices and transmit those instructions to BankBoston, which in turn pays suppliers and employees of the companies by either check or electronic credit. The service will be extended later this year to Uruguay, Colombia, Peru, and Mexico.