Matt Blogs!

Basic International Cash Management Tools

Although companies have been managing their international cash flows for more than 20 years, it is only relatively recently that off-the-shelf cash management services have become widely available. Initially these products were offered only through the major global banks. However, smaller regional banks and third-party providers are now forming alliances and networks to offer international cash management services to their global customers. The growth of the Internet and improved communications technology means that many international services can now be offered without requiring physical branches worldwide. The principal tools are described in the sections that follow.

Electronic Banking Services
Many of the electronic services offered domestically are now available globally, although they are not necessarily identical to products offered in the U.S. Treasury workstations have long been able to automatically dial up banks’ electronic reporting services, download the information, and insert the data into the company’s spreadsheets. This process, known as polling and parsing, can now be done on a global scale to compile a consolidated balance report. Alternatively, a company can arrange for a cash management bank or third-party provider to consolidate and report the balances on its behalf.

Although global balance reporting is a well-established service, implementation and execution can still vary greatly by country and bank. A consolidated global balance report will be only as good as the weakest reporting location.

Some banks (including branches of global banks) are not able to send transaction detail, only summary balances.

Certain banks will send reports only when there has been activity, and so on some days there will be no report.

Other banks may not have automated interfaces for balance reporting and may be keying information manually, which affects the accuracy and timeliness of the reporting.

Real-time information is most readily available from banks doing business globally.

Taken From : Essentials of Managing Corporate Cash

Posted in General
You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.