Real-time, real talk: Why payment transparency is crucial in treasury

"Treasury departments need a competent partner who can cover all basic needs and more from a single source," says Susanne Prager, Head of Cash Management at RBI. "Driven by the strong digitalization trends in the private customer business, we also want to set new standards for companies and financial institutions – especially in international and cross-border business."

“In general, we are seeing a trend towards increased client expectations for faster and more transparent banking services,” the expert adds. When expanding business activities domestically or internationally, requirements are also increasing, and a more robust cash management is needed. “This is where corporates and financial institutions clearly benefit from our group-wide product portfolio with in-depth expertise. As a relationship bank and leading corporate and investment bank for the country's top corporate clients, RBI offers access to the CEE region through active centralized advisory services,” says Susanne Prager. “RBI customers also appreciate our high service quality, modern multi-banking approach, and extensive cash management expertise in local markets.”

Companies are increasingly relying on specialized software providers, such as special treasury management systems, and want to receive their data in real time, i.e. with one click or when events occur on the bank accounts. “More and more of our cash management functionalities are also becoming available via Premium APIs, which ensure the convenient transfer of data between bank systems and customer systems – automated and in real time,” explains the specialist. Open APIs give companies and institutions more flexibility and control when transferring real-time data.

“Transparency has also become a key objective for our customers in recent years. With RBI's Cash Management Billing Solution, customers always know exactly what they have to pay for their SEPA and international payments and other cash management services. At the same time, with the RBI Group Payment Tracker, treasurers also get a near real-time E2E status of their cross-border payments, including deducted fees and applied exchange rates along the payment chain.” Transfers from and to the customers’ accounts can be tracked, no matter whether the account is held at RBI or in a network unit across CEE. “This service is now live in six countries, four more are planned to follow within the next two years.” 

Institutional clients in particular benefit from MultiCurrency Clearing. “With this service, the clients gain transparency by receiving a daily FX rate early in the morning that applies to all their FX transactions throughout the day. Since its launch, we have continuously enhanced the product, integrating automation to enhance reliability and reduce manual intervention. Financial institutions also benefit from our improved value dating process for faster and timely transaction execution. The MultiCurrency Clearing now supports 31 currencies. In addition, we are currently working on expanding our currency offerings and plan to provide our MultiCurrency rates via API in the future, enabling seamless integration and real-time access.”

“Both corporate customers and financial institutions rely on our extremely efficient payment routing,” says Susanne Prager. “In our international payment system, we have a very flexible routing in place, enabling us to select the best payment route for our clients. In addition, we have further increased speed and efficiency of our cross-border payments for our customers with SWIFT gpi.”