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Although eBAM (electronic bank account management) has been discussed for some time, there are currently only a few corporates exchanging eBAM messages either through banks’ proprietary solutions or through SWIFT. The term eBAM is often incorrectly used to refer to tools provided by treasury technology vendors for managing bank account and signatory information within the organisation. These tools should more correctly be described as ‘BAM’ or bank account management, while eBAM refers to the electronic exchange of messages with counterparty banks for opening or closing accounts, or changing signatories using banks’ proprietary systems or SWIFT.

Despite corporate enthusiasm for eBAM, adoption has been delayed in many cases, firstly as their banks or vendors may not yet support it, but secondly as companies have not first implemented an internal bank account management tool. USI has been one of the first companies to adopt both an efficient process for managing bank account information internally, and to extend this solution to incorporate eBAM, as this article describes.

Key Points

• USI recognised the need to enhance the way it managed its bank accounts, which involved much manual processing
• The company approached SunGard, its TMS provider, and implemented the Bank Account Management module as part of its TMS
• USI then joined SWIFT and embarked on an eBAM project, scheduled for completion by the end of 2012
• The author outlines the necessary steps in planning and implementing an eBAM project

Written by

Nancy Colwell
Director of Treasury
USI Holdings Corporation