Open banking in the treasury

Their implementation means banks and fintechs are able to offer new services. The underlying model is often the consumer goods sector, where, for example, real-time and mobile payments are now largely established. The new offers mean the treasury's options are now changing. In addition to traditional reporting, this function is increasingly being used as an input source for management. This is primarily based on the availability of real-time information, drawing on the company's own account information.

Originally, the banks had viewed the opening of their interfaces to third-party providers required by PSD2 with mixed feelings because they feared losing their customers to the challengers from the fintechs and non-banks — particularly the tech giants. And indeed, the interaction of regulation and technologies has permanently changed the business model of banks. Instead of individual financial services, institutional clients increasingly expect a comprehensive customer experience. At the same time, the past few years have also shown that innovative fintechs often fail to escape their niche existence as they lack a significant customer base. However, customers and their data are the decisive factor for the successful implementation of new offers. This is why many partnerships have emerged in the competition between banks and fintechs.

In turn, companies have become more aware of the potential of their data. Real-time data already plays an important role in supply chain management. In the treasury, data is becoming increasingly important, especially with regard to payments, account balances and investments. Customers are often looking for wide-ranging application options: For example, a global logistics company wants to use intraday balance information to optimise cash allocation while enabling sales teams to authorise the necessary documents or load the ships earlier. Another example is a German trader looking for ways to trigger an automatic payment at the moment the returned goods are back in stock. Another trader also wants to automatically initiate payments based on triggers that occur during non-working hours (during the weekend, for example). And a Spanish corporate client is looking for a solution for rejected direct debits. APIs could help to obtain real-time confirmation of the available account balance and automatically initiate a payment request.

Increasingly, treasurers want to know what benefits open banking can offer them. Financial institutions should generate, store and aggregate the inventory and transaction data of their customers, thus contributing to their further development. The banks made it possible to facilitate access to the data via API interfaces, but now they should also make use of the often demanded and more far-reaching possibilities through corresponding services. Helping their customers to become trustees of their own data and derive added value from it will strengthen the future relevance of