Efficient Cash Management and Future-Proofing Priorities for Financial Leaders

In the digital payments landscape, treasurers and other financial leaders go to work with a one-track mind: Managing liquidity.

According to a recent Deloitte survey, 84% of CFOs say it’s their top financial performance concern, followed by macroeconomic threats to that liquidity.

Go a little deeper into the survey – beyond macroeconomic concerns – and an interesting profile begins to develop as to how that liquidity will be managed and forecasted. Seventy-six per cent of those surveyed singled out digital transformation and digital technology as playing a more important role in their overall strategy. While digital transformation has many different meanings, more and more, it’s becoming synonymous with futureproofing.

“For me, futureproofing means investing in technology you can build on five or even eight years down the road,” says Jing Wei Lee, Head of Finance at FOMO Pay, a Singapore-based one-stop digital payment, digital banking and digital asset solutions provider. “I look at it like buying a piece of real estate. You want to make sure that the land you purchased can accommodate houses. But you also want the ability to add retail and commercial buildings as well. You need to buy something that makes you confident you can expand.”

FOMO Pay provides services to merchants, corporates and other financial institutions with global collection and payout needs in over 100 countries. To get a better handle on its cash management and future-proof treasury operations to enable effective decision-making, Jing and his team turned to Bottomline to reduce manual efforts and centralize its account insights, as part of a proactive effort to elevate payment workflows and cash management. The company recognized that adopting a streamlined approach would not only optimize processes but also provide a clearer understanding of its cash position, resulting in improved efficiency and robust compliance in its financial operations.

By doing that, Jing hoped to make cash management an automated, exact science.

“With Bottomline’s solution, we’ve strengthened our capabilities to obtain a complete picture of our cash position. We know exactly where we are, and we know exactly what our own obligations are with cash management.”

The implementation of the cash management solution paid dividends early on. Jing was impressed with the clean and intuitive user interface that showed a picture of a combined financial ecosystem with centralized key financial data accessible to drive more effective liquidity decisions in real-time. It also took advantage of Bottomline’s status as a leading Swift Bureau for real-time connectivity to local banks, which is important as FOMO Pay continues to expand its global footprint.

The project has delivered multiple transformation outcomes. In addition to obtaining greater visibility and control of its cash position across multiple banks, accounts, and currencies through a centralized dashboard, it has made significant enhancements to how FOMO Pay manages sanction screening. Automation in the payment lifecycle covers the creation of the payment file in its back-office system, secures and upload to the Swift Bureau, screens against internationally recognized sanctions lists, and transmits to the recipient bank using the Swift network. Jing says it has increased FOMO Pay’s straight-through-processing rates and bolstered compliance by implementing workflows that ensure the necessary approvals are received at each stage.

“We have a robust, proven, and easy-to-use treasury and cash management system at the heart of our payment workflow,” Jing says. “It’s like a central nervous system that monitors every transaction in and out of the business. Payments flow seamlessly from our internal payment systems through to our banks. Statements and confirmations are reconciled with our accounting system. The portfolio of treasury, payment and Swift connectivity solutions can support our requirements now and as we grow and evolve our business. We have a futureproof solution that can be part of our journey to further strengthen our position as a leading global digital payment solution provider.”

Jing says FOMO Pay has also improved its ability to forecast cash positions with the cash management implementation. In light of macroeconomic trends like rising input costs and working capital costs, treasurers and financial leaders are seeking efficient ways to manage cash and liquidity, future-proofing their operations. FOMO Pay’s implementation of analytical tools that use current and historical data across the entire capital structure of the business exemplifies how businesses can refine their cash forecasting models for more informed decisions and strategic capital allocation. Though this transformation involves reassessing processes and selecting fitting solutions, the benefits are significant – improved efficiencies, cost reduction, better compliance, and crucially, enhanced visibility and control over cash.