What does Payment and Cash Management (PCM) involve?
PCM is the handling of daily working capital to provide clarity, consistency and control for optimum use of liquidity. PCM services essentially provide businesses with better control of, and access to, their accounting, finance and treasury functions.
Today, PCM is a complex area. Consistent product knowledge training is an essential ingredient in providing the innovative solutions and service excellence that competitive businesses demand. HSBC’s PCM proposition includes a very large customer service capability in both local and regional centres as well as an extensive product range that receives constant investment and innovation.
What are the main aims of HSBC’s PCM workshops?
HSBC’s PCM workshops provide knowledge training on new product initiatives and market developments, while offering a great opportunity for key executives to meet, share knowledge about other regions in HSBC, and discuss ways of enhancing our customer service in Europe.
The workshop also invites discussion about current PCM trends with a view on what product capabilities we have operating within the region. It also allows delegates to share experiences, advice, and best practices.
We organise these PCM workshops regularly around Europe, bringing together a broad range of key executives in the region. We are delighted to hold this session in Malta, an ideal location for such regional events owing to the island’s well connected and central position, renowned hospitality, excellent facilities, and, of course, wonderful climate!
What unique strengths does HSBC’s PCM offer in Europe?
One of our key strengths is our position as a leading regional player with extensive global connections. HSBC’s PCM portfolio is physically present in 19 countries in Europe and benefits from extensive coverage through its global bank network alliances. This offers the advantage of being globally managed and coordinated yet with the local knowledge to support specific customer needs.
In terms of what makes HSBC’s PCM unique, we are constantly innovative and hugely supportive from an investment perspective.
Moreover, we offer more than leading PCM products. We are an end-to-end service of which innovation product management is one essential part. In other words, we are a ‘customer-centric’ organisation that always focuses on product innovation, sales and service excellence. So we are constantly there to support the customers’ working capital needs, coupled with a consistent, high quality service offering, as is required to help Maltese customers and, equally importantly, to help global customers with working capital needs in Malta.
What are the plans for HSBC’s Mobile Banking platform? How will this technology tie in with HSBCnet online facilities?
We continue to build on our mobile banking capabilities, and we have recently introduced HSBCnet in Malta.
Our strategy is to offer many of the major services available online HSBCnet through a range of platforms, including mobile as well as lap-top and desk-top computers.
Since launching HSBCnet on mobile globally, at the end of 2011, over $14bn of payments have been authorised using HSBCnet mobile, and we now have 9,000 active users all over the world. We continued to increase the range of devices that can be used for HSBCnet - the most recent being Windows-8 phones.
Going forward, we see mobile devices as enormously powerful in the field of payments and cash management.
Can we expect any innovative PCM products from HSBC in the near future?
Yes. We lead the industry in our adoption of XML standard messaging for deep integration between our bank systems and the core systems of our clients - be they SAP, Oracle etc. This is enabling us to retain and exchange extremely rich information with our banking clients to improve their awareness over their cash management and the effectiveness of their reconciliation and payment administration.
How well prepared is HSBC Bank for the Single Euro Payments Area (SEPA)?
The bank is very well placed in terms of SEPA. HSBC has invested and continues to invest heavily in payments processing as a core business, including SEPA, and is fully committed to playing its part in completing the SEPA roadmap both in Malta and Europe.
Business needs to be geared up to take the opportunity to bank with us. On our part, HSBC is ready to support customers globally in their migration to SEPA. It is also important to note that HSBC is a global leader in XML for payments as well as for customer liquidity management services, both of which are key factors contributing to SEPA’s positive benefits.
In itself, SEPA offers a borderless system of payments that simplify business transactions in the Eurozone, allowing for greater clarity, consistency and efficiency. With this comes the opportunity to improve one’s organisational strategy and explore business opportunities created by SEPA with HSBC’s guidance.
In view of the 1 February, 2014 deadline, companies yet to start a SEPA migration project should be tackling this process immediately since, in most cases, achieving minimum compliance will be the only way forward for business in Europe.