A global survey of product management and director-level bankers, conducted by UK bank applications and services vendor Misys and Finextra Research, shows that IT complexity is a primary hindrance to consolidating trade, cash management and payments services with institutions.
The survey found that while 57 percent of global institutions have taken steps to restructure those corporate and wholesale banking staples into a single-offering, 45 percent believe their ability to provide “joined-up” customer service to corporate clients is only average, or worse.
Tools such as cash-flow forecasting, real-time payment tracking and invoice/payment reconciliation are the top investment for the online channel, with one-third of banks planning on adding online Web functionality in the next year for a single-source payments hub. There are still a significant number who don’t have a dedicated cash management (20 percent) or online trade finance (19 percent) portals, according to the survey.
What’s to gain from consolidation? The bankers in the survey saw an average 14.4 percent increase in business from existing customers from offering services like cross-border cash pooling and sweeping.
Fifty-five percent believe it’s mostly related to IT complexity issues, making it more of a perceived obstacle dominance of global banks (40 percent).
