Fiducitation: International Treasury
Management Best Practices
Author: Ray Ferrara
and Brian O’Keeffe
Date: January 14,
2002 © 2002 Fiducite.com, Inc.
Fiducitation: A
synthesis of public Internet resources on the topic.
Instructions: Use the Table of Contents to navigate the document. Each citation has up to four distinct parts: Annotation, Clip, Source, and Cached File. Our Annotation and Clip (text or graphic from source document) help you decide whether to view the document. The source document may be viewed by clicking on the Source URL or by opening the embedded Cached File. All information is attributed to its source.
This Fiducitation was
prepared at the request of an international client. The main focus of this
Fiducitation is to locate “research material, best practice information or case
studies on managing a bank's global treasury function. In particular, the
requestor is interested in “finding out about successful organisational models
for global treasury, including ideas on outsourcing of key functions such as IT
or back office processing.” Overall, we did not locate much material
specifically on organizational models, but we did locate a significant amount
of research material and best practice information.
The
main sources we have located seem to fall into three categories:
- Association
and Benchmarking Web Sites – which are generally quite
content rich. Some of these are
more general treasury management sites and thus do not deal directly with
treasury management operations from the banks’ perspectives. However, in
that these sites represent the view of those who are clients of the banks
treasury and cash management operations, they do still have a great deal
of value. Of the association web sites, two which stand out in our opinion
are the International
Treasury Management Benchmarking Consortium (www.itmbc.com), and the Financial Services and Banking
Benchmarking Association (http://www.fsbba.org/ )
- White Papers and
Articles – which we located in the process of doing this research.
Typically, we have found these using our own or public search engines with
topic terms such as “treasury management” AND bank.
- Vendor Web Sites – primarily those of
banks offering treasury management services. We have also included a
reference to PhoenixHecht.com – a publisher that maintains a web site with
links to other bank and magazine sites focusing on treasury management.
As is typical with web
searching, we located much more material than we have included in this
Fiducitation – which contains what we feel are only the most information-rich
sites and documents. Each of these top sites is profiled and cached in the
sections that follow. The bulk of these sites – as well as many others which we
did not include – can be found by issuing the query:
This query may be issued
directly from the link above or interactively on the Search box on all pages of
the Fiducite web site at www.fiducite.com . This query will return
the top 200+ sites grouped in 5-10 topical clusters. Please feel free to re-issue this query now or at a future data
when you wish to locate new or updated material.
Associations and Benchmarking Services
Author:
International Treasury Management Benchmarking Consortium
Annotation:
Home
web site of the International Treasury Management
Benchmarking Consortium.
Clip: International Treasury Management Benchmarking Consortium
(ITMBC™) is currently a free association of treasury managers within major
organizations. ITMBC™ conducts benchmarking studies to identify practices that
improve the overall operations of the members.
Source: http://www.itmbc.com
Cached
File: 
Financial Services and Banking Benchmarking Association
Annotation:
Home
web site of
the US-based Financial Services and Banking Benchmarking Association.
Clip: The Financial Services and
Banking Benchmarking Association™ is dedicated to the analysis and improvement
of business processes in the brokerage, investment banking, insurance,
commercial banking industry and related industries. Through the exchange of
data gathered in benchmarking surveys, members will be able to benefit from the
experience of many companies in the industry. Membership is open to individuals
employed as permanent employees of companies in the brokerage, investment
banking, insurance, commercial banking industry and related industries.
Source: http://www.fsbba.org/
Cached
File: 
Canadian Institute of Chartered Accountants – Benchmarking Information
Annotation:
One
way to obtain process-specific best practice and benchmark data fairly
inexpensively is through the CICA, which has a association with Hackett
Benchmarking and Research – perhaps the premier benchmarking service in North
America. Again, its benchmarks may have a North American bias – and also are
not exclusive to banking – but they are very comprehensive.
Clip: The CICA is developing
partnerships with various organizations to provide benchmarking information to
members. Our first partnership is with Hackett Benchmarking and Research (a
division of Answerthink Inc.) offering benchmarking services to members in
industry. Click here to learn more about this service and to register for
access to the benchmarking database, the world's most comprehensive
benchmarking and best practices database. You can benchmark over 60 processes in Treasury, Finance, HR,
Procurement, and IT online. The cost to members is significantly reduced at a
cost of $295.00 per process. The CICA is in the process of establishing
relationships to offer benchmarking services to members in professional
services.
Benchmarking Processes
Treasury
·
Cash Management & Trading
·
Currency Management
·
Interest Rate Management
·
Risk Management
·
Capital Markets
·
Business Unit Support & General
·
Treasury Management.
Source:
http://www.cica.ca/cica/cicawebsite.nsf/public/SPBenchmarking
Cached
File: 
Treasury Management Pages
Annotation:
This
site bills itself as the “The Premier Internet Resource for Treasury Management
Professionals”.
It is US focused, but has some international data. Though intended primarily
for corporate treasury management professionals, it does have links to an
extensive list of bank resources.
Source: http://www.tmpages.com/
Cached
File: 
International Group of Treasury Associations
Annotation:
This
site contains links to other national treasury associations and a few surveys,
but not much else.
Source: http://www.intltreasury.org/welcome.htm
Cached File:
Treasury Outsourcing
Solutions
Annotation: This rather flat article in a recent
Global Treasury News issue provides some indication of a growing trend by banks
to outsource the global treasury function.
Clip: Consolidation, both domestic and global, has led to
increased competition, and the introduction of Internet trading, both direct
and portal-based, promises to squeeze slim margins even further. Outsourcing
can be the solution to many of these issues facing banks and brokerages.
Source:
http://www.gtnews.com/best_practice/home.html
Cached File: 
Best Practices in International Treasury Management – Global Treasury News article
Annotation: In this June 2000 article, Michael Alfonsi, a consultant
at Answerthink Corporation, provides his opinions on the best practices in
international treasury management. Although this was written for a broader
audience than just banks, it does apply to the banking industry as well.
Clip: The
Path to Best Practices
Companies that have the lowest degree of risk, the highest quality of output
or the lowest ratio of finance-cost-to-revenue-received share 11 common best
practices in international treasury and finance.
Source:
http://www.gtnews.com/articles3/2113.shtml
Cached
File: 
Why Dublin as a Treasury Outsourcing Capital?
Annotation:
This
article, also in a recent Global treasury News issue, is significant in that
the author argues that future treasury outsourcing options must be multi-bank
or bank independent – a factor which banks have yet to factor fully in their
offerings.
Clip: Dublin will not remain on as the
"Capital" unless:…
- The
offering becomes bank independent or at least multi-bank. The single bank
provider presents too many issues to have this model succeed against the
new competition.
Source:
http://www.gtnews.com/best_practice/home.html
Cached
File: 
The Transformation toward Global Treasury Management
Annotation:
This
Citibank-authored white paper presents a vision for treasury management in the
21st century and how banks will have to respond to meet the
challenges of this vision.
Clip: Vision For The 21st Century
Simms paints a picture of global treasury management in the 21st century.
"We will see more and more browser-based treasury systems and banking systems, all interfacing with one another over the Internet. Within companies, automated treasury functions will interface with ERP systems. Together, ERP systems and e-commerce will shrink cycle times.
"More firms will outsource their treasury functions. In this environment, security will become more and more critical to corporations and banks alike. What you'll see are global, coordinated treasury processes, which permit global or regional pooling."
Balfour adds: "Especially among multinational corporations, there is a major trend toward consolidating banking relationships with two or three banks. Corporations are forming closer partnerships with a smaller number of banks."
.
Source: http://www.gtnews.com/articles3/2105.shtml
Cached
File: 
2001 Treasury Technology Survey
Annotation:
This survey, conducted by Ernst & young
and the Australia Finance and Treasury Association provides a good overview of
the current status of future plans by corporations in Australia in virtually
all treasury management areas.
Clip: The survey found that almost a third of Clients
execute FX transactions online. These Clients use proprietary bank software of
which ANZ, Commonwealth Bank, and Citibank hold the most market share.
Source: http://www.fta.asn.au/technical/journal/v12n2p6-7.pdf
Cached
File: 
Banks and Treasury Globalization
Annotation:
This
article presents some basic concepts to help in rethinking bank/global treasury
relationships.
Clip: For a number
of years now, many corporate treasuries have been in the process of
centralizing global liquidity management and expanding previously domestic cash
management roles to include international responsibilities. While commercial
banks have not been ignoring this trend—spurred by industry consolidation and
corporate rationalization of banking relationships —they have refocused efforts
recently on how to respond to it.
Source: http://www.intltreasurer.com/btglobal.htm
Cached
File: 
PhoenixHecht.com Cash and Treasury Resources Page
Annotation:
This
primarily US-focused site has links to a number of bank and magazine web sites
dealing with treasury management.
Source: http://www.phoenixhecht.com/Internet_Guide/Cash_Treas_Publications.html
Bank of America Corporate & Institutional Banking - treasury management awards and accolades
Annotation:
Bank
of America is considered one of the best at both domestic U.S. and
international treasury management. This web site covers some of the major
features for which they have won awards and accolades – and also links to
several interesting white papers and case studies (see the left sidebar on the
web page for these links).
Source:
http://corp.bankofamerica.com/portal/portal/controller/controller.jsp?path=wcm%2Ftreas_srvcs%2Fawds_accol%2Fcontent.xml&prodNotchID=st65
Cached
File: 
PNC Bank Treasury Management – Blueprint for Innovation
Annotation:
This
article – starting on page 3 of PNC Bank’s fourth quarter treasury management
newsletter – gives an outline of what PNC intends to do in the treasury
management area.
Clip: Encompassing the Total Financial Supply Chain
What more and more of our clients are learning is something
we have known for years: our services can add value at every stage of the
Financial Supply Chain….To more clearly illustrate the flow of data and funds,
we have distilled the Financial Supply Chain down to these core functions….
Source: http://www.treasury.pncbank.com/Downloads/TMU4Q2001.pdf
Cached
File: 