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July-September, 2008

Cash Management and Payment Developments in India : Bank Offerings and New Corporate Best Practices
Niraj Vedwa*

Cash management is a broad term that refers to the collection, concentration, and disbursement of cash. It encompasses a companys level of liquidity, its management of cash balance, and its short-term investment strategies. In some ways, managing cash flow is the most important job of business managers. Having a traditional paper-based clearing system involving not only high processing cost but also security risk, cash management in India has certainly undergone a paradigm change. From a product-centric approach, the focus for almost all banks today has shifted emphatically towards the customer. And, success is all about bringing the maximum possible delivery channels to the prospects doorstep. In the rapidly transforming world of business, banking faces its biggest challenge yet - constant change. With every bank seeming to offer all services possible, efficiency, coupled with innovative value added solutions, have emerged as the key business differentiators that affect a banks bottom line. Confronted with shrinking deposits/margins, rising customer expectations, and intensifying competition, banks must at all times strive to be a step ahead of industry standards. At the

* President, Head Global Sales & Marketing, Nucleus Software, New Delhi

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same time, they cannot lose sight of credit risk, a natural by product of the increasingly complex relationships in todays dynamic markets. For some time now, technology has been the key driving force behind every successful bank. In such an environment, the ability to recognize and capture market share depends entirely on the banks competence to evolve technically and offer the customer a seamless process flow. The objective of a cash management system is to improve revenue, maximize profits, minimize costs and establish efficient management systems to assist and accelerate growth. Today a corporate treasurers dilemma is multifaceted. With more movement towards the regional/central liquidity management in the complex structure of rules and regulations, further complication is caused by taxation issues. We describe what a corporate treasurer needs as VOC Visibility of funds, Optimised returns on funds, and Control over receivables and payables. Treasury can face a number of issues related to the slow movement of funds, locked working capital, loss of float income, high cost of funds, time consuming reconciliation and manual processes. In India, the cash management business primarily involves collections and payments services. l l l l l l l l l l House cheque collections

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Outside network cheque collections

l Cash collections l ECS-Debit l l l Post dated cheque collections Invoice collections Capital market collections

Products Offered by Banks Under Payments (Paper and Electronic)

Demand drafts/bankers cheques Customer cheques Locally payable Payable at par RTGS/NEFT/ECS Cash disbursement Payments within bank Capital market payments Cash collection systems aim to reduce the time taken to collect cash owed to a firm. Some of the sources of this delay are mail float, processing float, and bank float. Three prime reasons for float could be First, an envelope mailed by a customer containing payment to a supplier firm does not arrive at its destination instantly. Second, likewise the payment is not processed and deposited into a bank account the moment it is received by the supplier firm. And finally, when the payment is deposited in the bank account, often the bank does not give immediate availability to the fund.

Products Offered by Banks Under Collections (Paper and Electronic)

l l l l l l l Local cheque collections High value (0 Day clearing) Magnetic ink character recognition (MICR) (three day clearing of cheques) Outstation cheque collections Cheques drawn on branch locations Cheques drawn on correspondent bank locations Cheques drawn on coordinator locations

Once the money has been collected, most firms then proceed to concentrate the cash into one center. The rationale for such a move is to have complete control of cash and to provide greater investment opportunities with larger sums of money available as surplus. There are numerous mechanisms that can be employed to concentrate the cash wire transfers, automated clearing house (ACH) transfers, and cheques. The trade off is between cost and time.

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July-September, 2008

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has placed emphasis on upgrading technological infrastructure. Electronic banking, cheque imaging, and real time gross settlement (RTGS) are just a few of the new initiatives. The evolution of payment systems such as RTGS, has posed some tough challenges for cash management providers. It is important that banks now look towards a shift to fees from float although all those cash management providers who have factored in float money in their product pricing might take a hit. Of course, there are opportunities also attached like collection and disbursal of payments on-line across the banks. There are a number of regulatory and policy changes that have facilitated an efficient cash management system (CMS). Fox example, the enactment of Information Technology Act gives legal recognition to electronic records and digital signatures. The establishment of the Clearing Corporation of India in order to establish a safe institutional structure for the clearing and settlement of trades in foreign exchange (FX), money and debt markets has indeed helped the development of financial infrastructure in terms of clearing and settlement. Other innovations that have supported in streamlining the process are: l Introduction of the Centralised Funds Management Service to facilitate better management of fund flows l Structured Financial Messaging Solution, a communication protocol for intra-bank and interbank messages

corporates and banks have added technology to their processes, the issues surrounding connectivity security have become much important. Today, treasurers need to ensure that they are equipped to make the best of decisions. For this, it is imperative that the information they require to monitor risk and exposure is accurate, reliable and fast. A strong cash management solution can give corporates a business advantage and it is very important in executing the financial strategy of a company. The requirement of an efficient cash management solution in India is to execute payments, collect receivables and managing liquidity. In India, traditional or e-business objectives, there are different cash management solutions.

Cash Management Solutions Offered in India

Account reconciliation services: Balancing a cheque book for a very large business can be quite a difficult process. Banks have developed a system to overcome this issue. They allow companies to upload a list of all the cheques whereby at the end of the month, the bank statement will show not only the cleared cheques but also uncleared ones. Positive pay: An effective anti-fraud measure for cheque disbursements. Using the cheque issuance data, updated regularly with cheque issuance and payment, the bank balances all cheques offered for payment. In the case of any discrepancies, the cheque is reported as an exception and is returned. Balance reporting services: Balance reporting provides help in procuring a companys current banking information from its accounts. With this service, the banks can offer almost all types of transaction-specific details. Lockbox: Facilitates the cash improvement where, instead of being delivered to business address, customer payments are delivered to a special post office (PO) box. It is only the customers payments that are delivered in the PO box and the companys own bank collects the amount and delivers them to the banks of the customers. The bank of the customers opens and processes the payments for direct deposit to the bank account. Lockbox contents are regularly removed and processed.

Evolution of Services
One of the emerging cash management services in India is payment outsourcing. Though cheques and drafts are a popular mode of payment in India, it is obviously a time consuming procedure because of the manual processing required. This is an area where payment outsourcing can help. It allows corporates to reduce their overheads and focus on their core competencies and, as a result, benefit from speed and accuracy. The enhanced security it offers also allows for tighter fraud control. For the Indian payment system to become completely seamless, there are many variables that need to be tackled, such as regulatory and legal issues, customer behavior, and infrastructure. As more

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Wave of Innovation and Change
Historically, the relationship between the bank and its corporate clients has been built around the credit facilities provided by the bank. Times and customer needs have changed and transactional banking services are of paramount importance. l On a global basis, there is an aura of resentment that corporate have been proactive in cash management and payments. Electronic commerce and finance are growing rapidly. New payments mechanisms designed to aid electronic commerce have become routine. Predictions are abound about the capabilities of the information and communication technology to bring forth important tools for conducting electronic commerce and payments. We are in the midst of a wave of innovation and change. In a dynamic economy, markets need to play a key role in guiding the development of infrastructure, including mechanisms like payments systems. This means that innovation and competition will be central to the future development of the payments system - as they are in other areas of the economy. There are diverse payment systems functioning in the country, ranging from the paper based systems where the instruments are physically exchanged and settlements worked out manually to the most sophisticated electronic fund transfer system which are fully secured and settle transactions on a gross, real time basis. l The retail payment systems in the country comprise both paper based as well as electronic systems. They typically handle transactions, which are low in value, but very large in number, relating to individuals, firms and corporate. These transactions relate mainly to settlement of obligations arising from purchase of goods and services. l l l

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businesses and in many cases diversifying. Efficient cash management is a must to support an institutions growth, and therefore, adopting the best cash management practices is necessary.

Some of the new corporate best practices include:

Bulk payments and vendors payments: Now corporates are insisting on a solution which can work Cheque writing: In order to execute the payments faster, banks are providing cheque writing facility to the corporate customers wherein customer can print the cheques locally at their own office with the facility of digital signatures and company logos. Bin management of PDC: Corporates are outsourcing the activity of post dated cheque (PDC) management to the banks for further reducing the cost of operations, administration, and data maintenance. Liquidity management: In order to have efficient utilization of excess funds corporate today avail the facility of liquidity management. Liquidity management system prudently manages various assets and liabilities (on-and off-balance sheet) and ensures that cash inflows have an appropriate relationship to the approaching size of cash outflows. The system ensures that necessary funds are available to entertain all cash outflows as they fall due. Adequate cash management mechanisms ensure efficient collection systems, systematic disbursements, and ideal deployment of idle funds, tiding over immediate cash needs, and compensating the banks that support these activities of the company. An advanced cash management system enhances the possibilities of earning high net interest income, creates efficient balance sheets, minimizes expenses on resources, and reduces the companys exposures to potential risks related to seasonality of business and debt repayments.

Best Cash Management Practices

Best cash management practices are the need of the hour with the corporate world focused on expanding its existing

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