Wim Grosemans, head of product management, payments and receivables at BNP Paribas, and Steven Lenaerts, head of product management Global Channels at BNP Paribas, explain the significance for corporate clients of the bank’s recent advances in instant payments.

Eleonore Bedel explains how helping BNP Paribas Wealth Management clients to make the right investment decisions can create a greater impact for all

BNP Paribas’s first payment tracking solution for beneficiaries demonstrates the cooperative focus the bank is taking with its corporate customers.

Having established the efficacy of the service, the focus of Swift global payment initiative (gpi) has moved to how its full value can be passed on to corporate clients. Wim Grosemans, global head of product management for payments and receivables at BNP Paribas, and Marc Delbaere, Swift’s global head of corporates and trade, explain how this is being achieved.

The correlation that exists between the adoption of best-in-class risk management practices and shareholder value offers a clear path of opportunity for companies to outperform their peers financially.

The secure messaging service Request to Pay has the potential to significantly ease the burden of managing receivables for corporates across Europe. Euromoney asked Dennie Servranckx, senior product manager receivables and Francis De Roeck, Payment Regulations Expert at BNP Paribas to explain how corporates will benefit from the new service.

Strategic FX management vs operational FX management

Treasurers globally are juggling a broad and growing range of responsibilities, with limited resources and a myriad of technologies and cultural, market and regulatory challenges from all sides. How does the treasurer of today overcome these challenges and identify the innovations that are likely to affect the corporate treasury function in the short and the long runs?

As the payments landscape changes due to changes in regulation, technology and client behaviour, the treasury function is also undergoing a major shift. While every change presents its share of threats and opportunities, certain points will have long-lasting implications on corporate treasuries around the world.

Receivables are key to keeping a company or institution in business. They are the final step of the cash conversion cycle, closing the gap in the working capital. In other words, receivables are really important for treasurers and yet are often seen as a difficult topic to address.

It is no secret that cross-border payments have been historically laden with problems of delays and errors, unclear payment status and fees. To address these issues, Swift launched the global payments innovation (GPI) with the goal of significantly improving the customer experience by increasing the speed, transparency and tracking of cross-border payments. This initiative from Swift involves more than 120 key transaction banks from more than 200 countries and territories around the world, and because Swift is where the critical mass of cross-border payments happen, its global payments innovation has been hailed as one of the biggest advancements in international payments in several decades. The initiative is designed to be functional at the short, medium and long terms.

BNP Paribas, PwC, SAP and the European Association of Corporate Treasurers (EACT) released the second edition of their thought leadership initiative, the Journeys To Treasury (JTT) report at EuroFinance Barcelona on the 4th of October 2017. The first edition of the report, released at EuroFinance Vienna in 2016 made a lasting impression on the corporate treasury community, with more than 1000 downloads across the world and more than 24,000 visits to the report’s website within the first three months of its launch. The 2017 edition of the report has taken the narrative further and discusses some of the most important issues and trends affecting the corporate treasury.

Innovation is on everybody’s mind and many wonder whether it’s actually more than just a buzzword. BNP Paribas’s response is clear and strong: innovation is a continuous journey, it goes beyond technology, is already underway and bringing progress at multiple levels and the Bank is also now working hand in hand with its clients to rock the treasury house. From blockchain-based solutions to SWIFT gpi and Virtual Account Management, the evidence is blooming.