Global Finance selects the best treasury and cash management banks, globally and by region, and the best providers of treasury management systems and services by category.
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The past year has seen the challenges facing treasury and cash management providers escalate, with a growing mix of foreign banks and increasingly sophisticated indigenous providers vying for both corporates’ and financial institutions’ business. The introduction of the single euro payments area (SEPA) in Europe also presents significant challenges for the industry as banks’ traditional revenue streams will be challenged by the removal of distinctions between pricing for domestic and cross-border payment transfers in the eurozone. Only a handful of banks, however, have successfully executed their SEPA strategies, and we have identified those banks we believe are more likely to flourish in a post-SEPA world.
The demands on the industry are becoming increasingly complex as banks and treasury software vendors come under pressure to provide ever higher levels of standardization on a global basis, to facilitate integration between banks’ back-office and corporates’ ERP systems and to help companies navigate the various legal and regulatory requirements in local markets in order to better manage their liquidity and working capital. While technology and product innovation have become increasingly important aspects of the business, so, too, has local market presence and knowledge. No amount of technology can account for that.
In this year’s Treasury & Cash Management Providers awards, Global Finance picks the banks and treasury management software providers we believe have successfully combined geographical reach and market presence with product innovation, investment in technology and local market knowledge to meet the needs of their customers. Winners were selected using a range of subjective and objective criteria such as investment in new and innovative technologies, profitability, product depth and breadth, market share and leadership, and regional coverage. Our winners reflect those companies that are innovating beyond traditional and core treasury and cash management services to provide real value-added solutions to their banking and corporate customers.
Regions covered include North America, Western Europe, Asia, Latin America, Central & Eastern Europe, the Nordic region, Africa and the Middle East. Best overall cash management banks in each region and across five categories encompassing liquidity management, payments and collections, risk management, CLS-linked offerings and money market funds were selected. We also selected the best overall global cash management bank and—for the first time this year, in recognition of the growing popularity of the white-labeling business, where large global cash management banks leverage their infrastructure and investments to provide outsourcing services to small and medium-size banks—we have awarded Best White Label System Provider.
Anita Hawser
