In her video interview with GTNews (link below) on 16 September, Marilyn Spearing from Deutsche Bank asked the question, “What will it take to move the acceptance of SWIFT corporate access from the current 500-or-so corporates to the 20,000 corporates seen as the addressable market?” Additionally she asked, “What is the value add that is going to make this attractive as SWIFT moves from the Multi-National to the Mid-Cap space?”
See the interview here http://www.gtnews.com/feature/378.cfm
Here are some of our views. Add your thoughts to the comments.
- Untangle the mess of permissions and paperwork.
–Provide clear guidance, by bank, about the process, paperwork and time required to get a corporate live for SWIFT.
-Allow the banks to post the documents required for activation of SWIFT services on the SWIFT website.
- Continue to educate corporate treasurers.
– Provide clearer guidance toward qualified consultants who can enable the treasury staff to navigate the technical requirements and middleware required to make SWIFT interact with ERP and Treasury systems.
-Add granularity to the onboarding steps and timeline. Despite the advances in the SWIFT website and message, clarification is still needed for the corporate treasurer to be able to understand what steps to take next if they think their company is a good fit for SWIFT.
- Create a demo or video.
– Show how a corporate might use SWIFT Alliance Lite. What does the interface look like? How does it interact with other software? Until now the only picture we can see is the USB memory stick. The concept is exciting, but the marketing
doesn’t sell.
- Convince banks to prefer SWIFT connectivity over other channels.
– Independently, banks continue to say SWIFT is a collaborative vice a competitive space. Aside from announcements, we just haven’t seen this practically applied.
- Develop an onboard team concept.
-When a corporate customer comes to SWIFT, or the bank, asking for SWIFT connectivity, the bank representative, SWIFT representative, and client would all discuss the needs and expectations of the client together.
-This process should be repeatable with the same SWIFT representative across each bank that the client wants to
connect to. If SWIFT were leading this, it would be much easier for the client to find the right contact at the bank.
We understand SWIFT Corporate Access is not for every company, but, in our opinion, it should move more rapidly into the larger market. These concepts could certainly help the process. What ideas do you have to increase the use of this great pipe?
-rdt
