Waste not, want not: BAML recycles parts to build new treasurer tool

The quickest solution is often to use what you already have. Bank of America Merrill Lynch (BAML) has taken that to heart with the development of its new Liquidity Express tool, which combines aspects of three existing services to help corporate treasurers in a new way.

To create it, the bank used parts of its Global Liquidity Platform (GLP) and CashPro Assistant forecasting capabilities and bolted them onto its virtual account management (VAM) offering. And as the three parts of Liquidity Express are already available off-the-shelf, existing customers face less of a challenge in using it.

In a nutshell, Liquidity Express is an alternative solution to notional pooling and physical cash concentration, which uses virtual accounts as the conduit of funds. Clients are able to consolidate funds from across accounts to a single balance in one account. By using virtual accounts they can monitor and report on the cash transfers. This removes the need for complex pooling structures, which are often only an option for the most sophisticated treasury departments.

Mark Smith, head of global liquidity in BAML’s global transaction services (GTS) division, describes how the three elements interact.