New Heights for Bank and Technology Innovation

Showcasing the 2021 Award Winners

The nominations for TMI’s 2021 Awards for Innovation and Excellence were not only more numerous than ever, but also pushed the boundaries of corporate treasury development further than ever before. All of the bank, technology vendor and fintech winners have created solutions that respond to real needs – present and future – among the treasury community, and continue to take the industry to new levels of excellence.

There is no easy way to do justice to such a multitude of robust Award-winning solutions, but here we will give a quick flavour of this year’s winners, and what set them apart. The first Bank winner is BNP Paribas, taking home three major Awards, namely Global Bank of the Year for Trade & Financial Supply Chain, Best Bank for Trade Finance & Financial Supply Chain – Europe, and Best Bank for Cash & Liquidity Management – Europe.

BNP Paribas continues to innovate in the trade and supply chain space, embracing the latest digital and sustainable solutions. Moreover, the bank’s global network encompasses more than 100 trade centres and 350 experts around the world.

On the cash management side, BNP Paribas offers 150 corporate banking centres and cash management capabilities in 23 countries, with full access to all local and European payment and clearing systems. Again, sustainability is key to the bank’s philosophy and since the Covid-19 pandemic began, BNP Paribas has led or supported 24 social bond transactions, totalling $13.6bn. The bank has been a true support for clients throughout recent turbulent times, and continues to impress with its cutting-edge and ESG-focused innovations.

A hotly contested category in 2021, Global Bank of the Year for Innovation, goes to Deutsche Bank. The TMI Judges were impressed by the fact that Deutsche Bank continues to push the boundaries of innovation – never simply following the crowd. Although a number of different solutions caught the eye of the Judges, the bank’s novel In-house Banking-as-a-Service offering (IHBaaS) was the deciding factor in this Award win. This creative, arguably ground-breaking offering enables a range of businesses to access the benefits of centralisation – meaning that in-house banks are no longer the preserve of the largest corporates.

Meanwhile, HSBC was the worthy recipient of four TMI Awards in 2021: Best Bank for Cash & Liquidity Management – China, Best Bank for Trade Finance & Financial Supply Chain – China and also North America, and Global Bank of the Year for Cash & Liquidity Management. As is clear from these Award wins, the bank not only remains a powerhouse in China, but also enables clients to transact like a local right across the globe.

Despite the challenging external environment, HSBC has also continued to digitise at scale with innovations that are shaping the transaction banking landscape, such as HSBC Global Wallet, the API Developer Portal and the Contour platform. The bank has also invested in initiatives to help deliver world-class customer service, using new technologies such as Robotic Process Automation. Elsewhere, innovative green trade finance and green deposit propositions are demonstrating the bank’s ESG credentials. And the bank’s customers, and their success stories, are testament to HSBC’s continual excellence and innovation in the corporate treasury space.

An additional heavy-hitter in the 2021 Awards is Bank of America, winning the Best Mobile Technology Solution for its CashPro® mobile app and being Highly Commended in the Solution Innovation category for its CashPro® Forecasting solution. Seeing the growing demand for robust mobile channels, driven in part by remote working, the bank has recently added additional features to its already impressive CashPro® mobile app. These new functionalities including remote cheque deposit capabilities and the use of a mobile token – on top of fraud prevention measures, FX capabilities, and electronic document signing.

The pandemic also placed a significant focus on cash forecasting, which is precisely why Bank of America rolled out its CashPro® Forecasting solution to all clients in October 2021. Leveraging machine learning technology in partnership with a vendor, the solution helps corporates achieve accurate and efficient multi-bank cash forecasting, while also offering robust analytics. The TMI judges were particularly impressed by the enhancements made to the vendor’s existing forecasting solution, which came from input from both the bank and its clients.

Another Awards powerhouse is Standard Chartered, winning four well-deserved Awards in this segment. These are: Best Bank for Trade Finance & Financial Supply Chain - Asia Pacific, Best Bank for Cash & Liquidity Management - Asia Pacific, Best Customer Experience, and a Highly Commended in the Solution Innovation category. The winning solutions behind these Awards include the chatbot that is making customer’s lives easier and the use of open banking rails to innovate in the IoT space.

In addition, Standard Chartered has also introduced ground-breaking solutions such as Straight2Bank Pay, which is an innovative e-commerce proposition through which the bank aggregates various collection methods, and also aids reconciliation and analysis. Recently, the bank has also made investments in mobile wallet connectivity, electronic banking solutions, blockchain technologies, SWIFT connectivity and APIs – helping clients implement a best-in-class digital treasury and stay at the cutting-edge of the profession.

Also taking home four Awards in 2021, Citi was the worthy recipient of: Best Bank for Cash & Liquidity Management in the Middle East & Africa, North America and also South America, plus the Best Bank for Trade & Finance Financial Supply Chain - South America. In each of these regions, Citi continues to help clients to navigate uncertainty, achieve operational resilience, and digitise their treasury activities.

Notable examples of this transformative approach in action include the implementation of digital bank guarantees, with real-time, electronic delivery to the beneficiary in Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador and Peru – and the expansion of the new Citi Electronic Trade Loans solution to 14 countries in Latin America. And these are merely the tip of the iceberg in terms of innovation and excellence at Citi, as the bank’s clients will attest.

Elsewhere, the Best Bank for Trade Finance & Financial Supply Chain - Middle East & Africa goes to Societe Generale. The bank is a major player in the region, with a particular focus on Africa and in 2021, and continues to push the boundaries of ESG trade finance in the region. Indeed, the bank is constantly exploring and developing new solutions, with the support of in-house innovation labs and/or external partners. In the last 12 months, several digital solutions have been launched throughout the Group’s network on the African continent, and the TMI Judges are excited to see where the bank’s innovative approach takes it in 2022.

Vendors to the fore

As sure as night follows day, the Best Accounts Payable & Receivable Solution Award for 2021, was won – once again – by the deserving team at Serrala. The company’s strength in this area remains undeniable. Serrala’s Alevate CashApp, a new cloud-native solution that accelerates the cash allocation process to the max. The new proposition is an integral part of the full invoice-to-cash offering and with these integrated solutions customers can build seamless end-to-end processes from invoice to cash.

A new entrant to the TMI Awards in 2021, Calastone wins the Liquidity Investments Innovation Award 2021. By connecting all money market fund participants digitally for the first time, Calastone is reshaping how treasurers see liquidity. The company’s Money Market Services (MMS) offering is all about helping companies balance their liquidity, risk and yield objectives when investing surplus cash. And the technological approach it has to its global network is truly transformational, making this Award win an easy choice for the TMI Judges.

Another highly contested category in 2021 was Best Cash & Treasury Management Solution, with many vendors putting their hats into the ring, showcasing both innovation and excellence. Nevertheless, the ultimate winner is FIS. In 2021, FIS’ long-lived Integrity solution was reinvented as the FIS Treasury and Risk Manager - Integrity Edition. The underlying technology has been fully overhauled with considerable expansion of its functionality covering new risk management, connectivity, and payment hub capabilities. FIS is also one of few TMS vendors with a dedicated ESG organisation and is a deserving winner of this accolade.

Meanwhile, one category which had a hands-down winner was Best Bank Connectivity Award, won by Fides Treasury Services. Fides, an independently operated subsidiary of Credit Suisse, works closely with every major bank, and partners with a wide range of TMS and ERP vendors, consultants and fintechs. In doing so, Fides’ bank connectivity solutions integrate with all the leading TMS and ERP solutions, but they can also be used as a standalone system. They are primed to eliminate hours of manual spreadsheet work and worries around file formatting, multiple data sources, and regulatory compliance – making the lives of treasurers that much easier.

Another clear win came in the Best Trade Finance Solution category, which goes to Contour. With a Tier 1 bank-supported global network built around R3’s Corda blockchain, and interoperability with essential shipping and trading networks, Contour is ratcheting up the digitisation of trade finance. Indeed, Contour’s interoperability with shipping networks (eBL/port/customs) and trading networks gives corporate clients a much-needed end-to-end experience across trade, finance, execution, and delivery elements. In testing, the network has proven that processing times can fall by as much as 90%, from an average of 10 days to under 24 hours end-to-end. The TMI Judges salute this welcome disruptor and is delighted to celebrate their success.

The Best FX Risk Management Solution 2021, meanwhile, is won by Kantox. As part of the company’s commitment to continuous improvement within the industry, Kantox’s Dynamic Hedging capability has significantly grown throughout 2021. The solution now enables corporates to establish an in-house bank with a dedicated FX risk management function. This functionality offers significant potential benefits for busy treasury teams, and Kantox’s innovation continues to not only make life easier for corporate treasurers, but to shake up the world of FX risk management.

The technology side of the TMI Awards typically features technology vendors rather than banks, but bucking that trend in 2021, the Solution Innovation Award goes to NatWest for its PayIt innovation. NatWest was the first UK bank to launch an open banking payments solution: Payit™ which is a new fast, fair, simple and safe payment solution. Additional functionality launched in 2021 means that Payit™ now offers corporates the ability to send money direct to customers’ bank accounts, without needing their account details. Read more about this solution in a recent TMI article about open banking.

Finally, the TMI Judges were delighted to introduce another new Award for 2021, Best Innovation Lab Solution Award. The Innovation Lab is a joint project between TMI and J.P. Morgan, which showcases fintech talent in the treasury space. Highly Commended in this category is Predictive Black. This dynamic fintech prides itself on delivering smart forecasts. As such, it deploys AI in its cloud-based decision-making tool, bringing real-time smart visualisation, analysis and scenario planning to treasury operations, large or small. The company also offers relevant business intelligence to guide decision-making – and is making waves in the treasury arena. Discover more by heading to the TMI Innovation Lab.

And last but by no means least, the overall winner of Best Innovation Lab Solution is FinLync. Treasurers are often faced with systems that do not talk to each other. But FinLync integrates bank and ERP data. As a result, real-time payments, balances, and account information, as well as ML-assisted reconciliation, are on tap for treasury.

As the company told TMI: “FinLync’s ERP-native apps give treasury teams total data integration with the ease of an app install, the real-time power of APIs, and the intuitive design you’ve come to expect in consumer apps. Instead of being hamstrung by third-party systems and weak links, treasury and finance departments can now maintain uninterruptible connections to all of their banks. That constant visibility means more liquidity, better decisions, and the elimination of fraud. And because it’s a native install, it can be up and running in a matter of weeks, not months.” This simple yet highly effective solution is a worthy winner of this inaugural Award, and readers can find out more on TMI’s Innovation Lab.