Barcelona – Recent survey from SWIFT and EuroFinance reveals corporates wish list for enhancements in cross-border payments.
Unveiled at the EuroFinance International Conference in Barcelona, the survey, The future of payments: a corporate treasury perspective, gauged the views of 300 treasury professionals from corporations worldwide, ranging from SMEs to global corporations, in 18 different industries.
The survey results identify pressing issues such as the current lack of payments traceability and confirmation of credit, the lack of visibility on the bank fees deducted from transactions and the inconsistencies between the amount sent and amount received by the beneficiary.
The majority of the surveyed corporate treasury professionals place real-time tracking at the top of their list of enhancements, followed by more consistency between bank payment processes and better visibility on banking fees.
“Corporates expect greater transparency in cross-border payments. They want to know what is happening with the payment and when it has been credited on the beneficiary’s account. Until now, this has not been the case. This survey confirms the relevance of SWIFT gpi, because of its ability to address these key pain points”, commented Wim Raymaekers, Head of Banking Market and SWIFT gpi at SWIFT.
Treasurers also gave their views about working with alternative payment providers. Despite the hype surrounding this topic, only 8% of participants are currently using alternative payment providers for their cross-border payments. Also, the majority of respondents have no plans to use alternative solutions. The main concern they see with new payment solutions are scalability, security, regulatory oversight and standardisation.
Additional findings from the survey include:
- Sixty-four percent of treasurers said they want real-time payments tracking, while 42% are looking for instant payments;
- Gaining visibility on the cost and deductions from a transaction (47%) and reducing and optimising exceptions and investigation handling (41%) are also high on the list;
- When choosing a bank partner for cross-border payments, 86% of treasurers cited the need for efficient payment processes and effective customer support. Other criteria included competitive pricing and transparent charges, as well as extended global coverage;
- Payment innovation was referenced as a priority when selecting a bank by only 30% of treasurers, suggesting that innovation for its own sake is a relatively low priority compared to innovation leveraged to address fundamental concerns and needs.
“SWIFT is continuously engaging with corporates in order to understand their priorities and challenges. The recently launched SWIFT gpi service addresses many of the main topics cited by treasurers, in particular real-time payments tracking. This is the ideal foundation to make international payments more efficient for corporates and we are working very closely with banks and corporates to fully embed SWIFT gpi into their core processes”, commented Marc Delbaere, Head of Corporates and Supply Chain at SWIFT.
To download the survey results, please click here.
