I’ve been thinking a lot about how much Treasury Management has changed since I started in the business just over 25 years ago. Although I’ve been out of the game for at least 4 years, it seems that Lockbox (especially wholesale) and remittance processing have been moving towards integrated receivables for many years; but the challenge has always been on bringing various disparate systems together. From providing companies offerings in ACH and EDI payment processing, archaic but still valid offerings like Deposit Reporting/Cash Concentration, Deposit Reconciliation, exception management and reporting on remittance processing and of course the latest “Big Daddy” remote deposit capture. There is no question, we have a love-hate relationship with checks. From processing them, to reconciling them, to truncating them. Its a challenge. The goal was always to improve availability, reduce float, increase visibility, etc – but the ultimate goal is to integrate this with a corporate customer’s financial workflow so that they can easily reconcile these payments and deposits with invoices – creating a sticky and profitable relationship.
As Treasury Management systems become more flexible and extensible with offerings such as an API set designed to tightly integrate the customer and bank system, or advanced file transformation and delivery solutions that streamline strait through processing I think this will become a reality. Take the interesting offering from Standard Treasury – developing APIs for commercial banks or Online Banking Solutions providing advanced data file exchange. Further, as Treasury Management moves to mobile devices it will eliminate the barriers to getting all the data. Bring it altogether and you have a much better way to provide commercial online banking. An example is TIS’s MobiREMIT a solution that brings remittances and checks together in a remote mobile capture solution.
In my current role I’m thinking about what mobile has to do with it. I think there is a “there” there – especially when tackling remote offices, traveling employees, or the exceptions. So does automated data entry and having superior technology for extracting data off of any type of supporting document or paper payment. Bring this altogether and you will see why vendors in the mobile imaging and content management space are looking to become catalysts for change. I would love to know more about your thoughts. I will be at the NACHA Payments conference next week (TIS, Booth 131) and and also attending Finnovate in May. Lets get together – ping me here, on Twitter or LinkedIn to get in touch.