The 2010 survey of the banking clubs shows considerable variation in the number of member banks and country coverage, as shown in Table 7 (click here to see Table 7: Banking Clubs, January 2010) . Connector now reports all its member banks individually rather than collectively as bank groups, which explains why the number of Connector bank members has increased so significantly over the past 12 months, from 15 to 46. It has also added several new member banks, which has increased the number of countries covered by Connector from 34 to 43. Connector is working on a new product development in euro pooling. The number of IBOS member banks has increased from 28 to 31 and the country coverage from 25 to 28. The TES Banking Club continues to have the widest country coverage, slightly down from 78 to 74 this year, and the largest number of member banks, slightly up from 73 to 76. Over the past 12 months, TES members have been consolidating their extensive cash management networks and extending the quality and range of their cross-border services. In Europe TES member banks have also developed new cash management functionality to comply with Payment Services Directive (PSD) and SEPA requirements. The numbers of Unicash member banks and country coverage remain unchanged, at 34 and 32 respectively, for a second year. Future of ICM
One of the main impacts of the credit crunch is the changing role of cash management. For many companies cash management has already become an integral part of their entire financial and operational efficiency, no longer regarded separately. In the future international cash management considerations will affect practically every aspect of the supply chain, requiring banks and companies to co-operate closely to squeeze every last bit of available working capital out of their cash management systems and processes.
The global network banks are already investing in and positioning their services and support to help their corporate clients fully exploit each and every opportunity for improving international cash management. Tim Fitzpatrick, acting head of payments and cash management Europe at HSBC, confirms, “HSBC will continue to remain committed to substantial investment in transaction banking, tailored to our customer needs. We will continue to strengthen our sales and distribution capabilities to take full advantage of future developments in the global economy.” Chris Furness, global head of cash management at Standard Chartered Bank, believes, “The business has evolved into more than cash management. It is about optimizing convergence of clients’ key business drivers, like liquidity, transaction execution, information, reach, risk and control. Our segment-based approach has enabled us to have an end-to-end perspective on the business drivers across the entire financial supply chain.”
So far so good, but eventually the cash management banks will all be required to morph their international cash management services into total working capital management* services, enabling their corporate clients to optimize every aspect of every process, system and structure across the entire supply chain.
*Editor note: This is why Euromoney magazine’s international cash management roundtable in the autumn has been refocused and renamed ‘The Total Working Capital Management Roundtable’.
