Putting Innovation into Practice: Trade Finance for the 2020s

A lasting partnership between Bahrain-headquartered AIG and BNP Paribas has kick-started a number of long-term digitisation and automation initiatives, resulting in improved finance and treasury processes.

Working capital conversations between banks and corporates have typically focused on individual bank products, rather than the specific needs and challenges of the corporate – leaving opportunities and efficiencies on the table. But that’s all changing now, as Adeline de Metz, UniCredit, explains.

Treasury and supply chain disruption caused by external factors is nothing new, but recent developments may be making it the new normal. Therefore, the ability to switch technology and supply chains to new locations/suppliers with the minimum of upheaval is becoming a business imperative. This applies not just to the physical supply chain but also the financial one that underpins it, which presents corporate treasuries with significant additional challenges.

Meliá Hotels' treasury team was looking to access faster and more flexible liquidity as means of speeding up the cash conversion cycle. They decided to implement a receivables finance programme with HSBC that would respond to the company's current and future needs.

Technologies such as artificial intelligence have the potential to make it easier for treasurers to gain visibility and control over their cash. But simply investing in these technologies is not enough to achieve working capital efficiencies.

At a time of unprecedented uncertainty, cross-functional data dashboards and machine learning could help treasurers to break down barriers and unlock hidden working capital efficiencies across their organisation.