FROM THE DESK OF GLEN SOLIMINE

We recently reached a significant milestone in our continued efforts to improve the state of bank relationship, bank account and signatory management. We can proudly state that there are over 4000 legal entities managing more than 6000 accounts across 200 banks using the system. When you think about the possible number of combinations and permutations of signers and limits across entities, banks, countries and accounts it is little wonder that signatory management operations have been de-centralized since the dawn of banking.

While the numbers are certainly significant in-and-of themselves what really gets us excited is the impact this has on our clients. Reducing cycle times for account and signer changes, eliminating time spent on manual audit preparations and basically allowing what should be automated to be automated means our clients can concentrate on more value added tasks…or better yet spend a little extra time with the family.

We spent last week at the SIBOS conference in Boston. There was a round table discussion entitled “Corporate Access, Beyond Cash Management. Participants were:

Andreas Drabert, Vice President Treasury Controlling, EADS

Darsh Johal, Head of Global Cash Management, Shell

Dave Robertson (moderator), Partner, Treasury Strategies

Jan Van Dooren, Executive Ecommerce, Safmarine Container Lines N.V.

In speaking of our joint project to use electronic document exchange and electronic messages, to dematerialise (remove the paper from) the bank account administration process, Darsh from Shell asked… “Why are we doing this? We think we will get improved efficiencies, improved control and improved customer service from our banks. A lot of banks are looking at this from a customer-service perspective, which is very important. Adopting an eBAM process would be a win-win for any large corporate and also for the banks involved.”

Other topics discussed by the panel included extending the use of SWIFT infrastructure in the areas of Trade Finance Messaging and Securities messaging. Fully 42% of the corporations responding to an on-the-spot survey responded that creating standards for Bank Account Management be a priority. The best way to promote improvement in the market for electronic Bank Account Management (coined eBAM) is to develop and promote the use of interoperable standards for bank account and mandate changes between banks and corporations.

At Speranza Systems, we are proud to be working with Shell and other fine companies to take a lead on this important initiative. We believe our brand equity is in thought leadership not proprietary technology, and we will continue to work with our customers, industry standard setting groups, and global banks to develop the standards that may be adopted by other groups for the promotion and advancement of the treasury industry.

Last week, Matt Moore joined our team as the Director of Sales and Marketing. It is an honor to have someone like Matt on the team. He has been one of the most successful sales executives in the treasury management market for many years. Matt’s specialty is establishing strong relationships built on mutual trust, and that is exactly how we like to do business.

Bob Henchey, Tom Keery and I spent some time last week at the 2007 New York Cash Exchange, an annual event produced by TMANY, the Treasury Management Association of New York. Part of the attraction of a conference, of course, is the ability to connect and re-connect with customers and friends, and when you have the opportunity to do that in the city that never sleeps – well, that makes it all the more fun. Our thanks to everyone who stopped by our Speranza Systems booth. (And as a long time NY Giant fan, I was naturally happy to listen to Tiki Barber at our lunch on Thursday.) One particularly interesting bit of information came from a presentation by Bruce Lynn of the Financial Executives consulting group. Of around 460 large corporations they interviewed, nearly 10% said that they did not know how many banks they actually have in their network. This situation is yet another indication of how too much paperwork – and not enough worthwhile information – can inhibit sensible bank relationship management. The next trade shows we’ll be at occur this Fall, in Boston and Vienna. In the meantime, Speranza Systems will be holding a few seminars on bank relationship management in the upcoming weeks, so stay tuned.

In Boston for the Treasury Management Association of New England's 22nd Annual Sources of Education Conference. It's a great regional conference that pulls together many of New England's corporate treasury professionals and really focuses on the quality of the educational sessions they provide. They also have a very nice event every evening, with food, drinks and a live band…it was good opportunity to connect with old friends and connect with new ones in a relaxed atmosphere. It was interesting how many of the educational sessions were dedicated to bank relationship management and regulatory compliance….they seemed to be the best attended sessions.

In London, Paris, Hamburg and Brussels this week for a series of meetings with partners and clients, I'm struck by how avidly some of our European counterparts embrace the notion of comprehensive bank relationship management. I suspect this may be due in part to the centuries of experience they've had in working cross-border with other nations and systems, having to learn to adjust their business processes to work within different jurisdictions and having to know who is the best banking partner in those various jurisdictions.