Having implemented Cobase, the initial benefit for the Temenos treasury team was the considerable time savings unlocked by the set-up. “By logging on to one platform, we can approve all our payments, do the FX trading, and have a near real-time view of our bank balances,” enthuses Blomfield.
“This gives us a more holistic view of our entire cash position. I receive alerts when cash comes in, or a payment over a certain amount has just gone out. I can answer questions of senior management as and when needed as it provides a single source of truth.”
On the cash forecasting side, the team generally runs an eight- to 12-week forecast, depending on the time of the year. While the time horizon of the forecast has not changed, how the task is managed is now far more straightforward.
“We used to manage our forecasting on Excel, including data dumps from our previous TMS and information from banking platforms,” reflects Blomfield. “Now we have everything at our fingertips on Cobase, we don’t need Excel files and the management reporting is on another level.”
On the payments side, the automation that Cobase has brought to treasury combines efficiently with the company’s ERP system to improve workflow. “We have a payments team that loads the payments via Oracle or manually for one-off payments,” explains Blomfield. “My team receives a reconciliation file and can check that against what they see in Cobase and then approve it in bulk, signing off everything in one go. The time that saves and the ability to check it back in such a simple manner is great.”
The company’s FX trades have always run through 360T. Following the implementation, there is now a link directly to that through Cobase. “The FX set-up means that my back-office team is no longer manually inputting trades into a database as we can reconcile everything there,” says Blomfield. “We can also manage the netting, as Cobase generates the netting notifications to the bank. Once it’s agreed, we have a one click method to approve the payment.
Previously, we had to manually input all the FX payments.” With an implementation such as this example from Temenos, both the company and the technology provider must have the right priorities and have identified the project’s key goals before any work is started."
For Blomfield, this peace of mind has been complemented by a smooth working relationship. “I promise they haven’t paid me, but they have been absolutely great,” she says.
“I can honestly not find a single fault in how anything we’ve requested has been handled. During the implementation, our input was minuscule. We provided introductions to the bank and the data it needed. Then we had a weekly call, and everything was done in the background, which is far removed from any implementation experience I’ve ever had. The transfer to Cobase’s customer services since has been very smooth, and they’re highly responsive.”
