Awards for Excellence 2017
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Choosing the winner of the best bank for transaction services in Latin America was difficult. The shortlisted banks – BBVA, Citi and BAML – all demonstrated real growth and innovation in working within this politically and economically diverse region.
However, BBVA wins the award for best transaction services bank after demonstrating the most impressive body of work over the last year. The bank operates with both a local and global mentality, meaning it can provide on-the-ground services for its customers across Latin America, but also link them into its international correspondent banking network.
Working as a local bank, it can provide payments and collections services, as well as access to clearing houses in individual countries. Because the region has a complicated tax regime, BBVA has made investment in local collection points, and the bank has worked to ensure its customers have clarity around individual invoices and payments.
Leveraging the expert knowledge of the bankers across the different countries in the region has helped BBVA to gain market advantage. There has been a focus on up-skilling the individual teams by training them about the individual product sets. They then have a clearer insight into what the bank can offer to clients to improve their operations, regardless of the size of the company involved.
Rather than having its products providing the basis for their approach to each customer, the bank instead seeks to find where its clients can benefit best from its services.
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In cash management, the bank recognizes that customers are now moving towards centralized operations and payment factories. BBVA has focused on improving its ability to offer standardized payments, accounts settlements and payment status reports in a simplified file format for clients that operate across a number of countries and differing messaging formats.
Orlando Guntiñas, head of global trade and international banking strategy and business development at BBVA, says the bank has recently provided export credit agency facilities to a smaller company in Colombia. Although not a new concept for larger companies, the bank recognized the benefit for this smaller corporate, which helped to improve its financing.
While BBVA ultimately took the top prize, the innovations of Citi, particularly its extensive work on improving collections and receivables across the region during 2016, deserve mention. The bank launched virtual accounts in the region for the first time in Mexico, and has expansion plans for the rest of the region.
Equally, BAML’s focus on treasury has greatly assisted its customers in Mexico, introducing enriched text for payments, and enhancing its existing referenced collections service for clients receiving payments by cheque.
