Better Data for Better Reports: Why Modern Integration Makes a Real Difference

Real-time transparency in treasury reporting is rapidly evolving from a nice-to-have feature to a fundamental expectation. As real-time payments increasingly establish themselves as the new standard and payment processes become ever faster, treasury decisions – such as financing, FX transactions, or the use of credit lines – need to be made faster as well. Without timely information, companies either react too late or hold too much liquidity as a safety buffer.

“Data available on demand – such as via APIs – is becoming increasingly important in this context, as it can provide detailed real-time insights at the level of individual payments, rather than relying on end-of-day or delayed intraday information,” says Björn Zaksek, Cash Management Product Expert at RBI. “Such transparency is particularly valuable in fragmented regions such as Central and Eastern Europe and in neighboring markets. Different currencies and domestic clearing systems in these regions frequently result in settlement processes and cut-off times varying from market to market. Real-time information therefore helps companies monitor payment status and liquidity positions more accurately and manage their treasury decisions efficiently despite this complexity.”

Timely information is also crucial from a risk perspective: delayed payment data makes it difficult to detect fraud or errors early on, which often makes resolution more time-consuming and costly. “In practice, real-time status updates are particularly valuable for the effective management of payments and the reconciliation of accounts, as they help treasury teams immediately identify rejected or delayed payments rather than discovering issues only at the end of the day.”

“The transition to new data formats remains a challenge for many companies, as legacy formats are gradually being phased out and are often no longer compatible with downstream processes,” says Michael Heinzl, Product Manager Cash Management & Payments Expert at RBI. The main advantage of the new formats is that structured data can be processed much more effectively and utilized for automated downstream processes. “We can cover these new formats across all channels and help customers leverage these benefits.” In this context, APIs are very open and can transport a wide variety of data types that go beyond traditional payment instructions or account statement information, such as user rights, database exports, or account metadata.

However, this requires that both the bank and the customer – or the customer’s software provider – are able to process this data. “Our goal is to integrate APIs as deeply as possible into proprietary applications and to jointly develop both ERP/TMS environments and banks’ backend systems toward fully integrated real-time processing,” adds Björn Zaksek.

Many customers are reluctant to switch to APIs because they are satisfied with their existing systems. “As long as the current setup works in a reliable way, there is often little urge for change in treasury,” says Björn Zaksek. However, APIs can optimize far more than just the existing cash management setup. For example, bank account information and access rights can be retrieved via APIs on a daily basis, which often requires lengthy processes with traditional channels or is sometimes not possible at all.

“Pre-validation of data before it enters banking systems could also be offered via APIs in the future. This improves quality and efficiency, as only correct transactions are allowed through, which in turn saves costs,” explains Björn Zaksek. Another topic for the future is Electronic Bank Account Management (eBAM), which currently runs via EBICS but can also be offered on an API basis. “At RBI, we are actively working on the development of such API products to offer customers modern, flexible, and efficient solutions,” the expert summarizes.