How to Unlock a More Effective Treasury with ISO 20022

• 

  Rich payment data

• 

  Improved efficiency, fraud protection

• 

  Steps to ISO 20022 adoption

• 

  The future is here

Among your many priorities, improving efficiency, protecting yourself against fraud and maximizing the effectiveness of your treasury operations are likely near the top of the list. Adopting next-generation payment methods, such as the ISO 20022 standard, can help businesses of all sizes make fast, secure, data-rich payments while positioning their operations for the future.

For your treasury function, ISO 20022 means less manual intervention, more accurate compliance processes, and reduced risk of fraud due to greater transaction security. It also enables you to offer your customers more transparency regarding payment fees, remittance information and estimated settlement times.

Many businesses have already reaped the benefits of ISO 20022. For companies that haven’t, now is the time to plan on implementing it in your organization.

​

Old habits, of course, can be hard to break. We hear many treasurers thus far have avoided electronic payment solutions because of the perceived lack of data. As a result, many continue to use paper checks and wire transfers simply because of the information they include, despite the ever-growing fraud risks involved.

Upgrading your systems to include ISO 20022 will provide you with faster access to richer, more structured and more granular information about your payments.

With the robust data ISO 20022 provides, you can enable process automation to extract information more efficiently. ISO 20022 can also reduce delays caused by unstructured, incomplete, or inconsistent data. Ultimately, eliminating the need for manual intervention decreases the likelihood of human errors and improves operational efficiencies, leading to potential cost reductions.

Rich payment data also:

• 

  Enables better transparency, which helps minimize fraud

• 

  Supports your ability to comply with evolving regulatory requirements

• 

  Allows for better inbound and outbound payment flow forecasting.

These benefits come without any trade-offs. With ISO 20022, you can still reconcile payments, but you can do it all while saving time and money, as well as keeping your payments secure.

​

• 

  Discuss your payment infrastructure with your bank:
  Not only should bankers be able to explain the urgency of ISO compliance, but they should work with you on building an integration plan.

• 

  Don’t forget about IT departments:
  Implementing ISO 20022 in your systems should involve a dialogue between treasury, your banker, and your IT team to ensure the smoothest integration.

• 

  Ensure your involvement with payment infrastructure upgrades:
  We hear that many companies are planning to modernize their enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems. That’s a good opportunity to make sure finance, treasury, and IT departments are aligned on requirements.

Major ERP vendors have built ISO 20022 into their systems. And financial institutions, including BMO, are also investing more in ISO 20022 to make it accessible for our large business customers. That means when you upgrade your ERP system, supporting future payment services based on the standard will require significantly less development on your part. Along with future-proofing your internal operations, ISO 20022 can help you meet the evolving needs of your customers and vendors.

Unlike larger corporations, small and mid-sized businesses don’t necessarily have to make a substantial investment in finances, time, or resources to take advantage of ISO 20022. As more banks incorporate the standard into their services, however, these companies may be able to take advantage of the speed, efficiency and security benefits, making more efficient use of their internal resources in the process.

​

CFOs usually spend a lot of time preparing their treasury operations for the future by trying to make them faster and more efficient but without sacrificing security. With ISO 20022, they can take a big step forward with their payments today.

The fact is the treasury function is well beyond the early adoption phase of ISO 20022. We’re in the requirement phase. If you aren’t there yet, let us help you get on board.

Dan Jansen, Head, North American Payments; Luk Boral, Head, North American Delivery; and Stephanie Chan, Senior Product Manager, contributed to this article.