Creating a Seamless Offering

By Christian Westerhaus Head of Cash Management Product Management [email protected]

Deutsche Bank's Capital Markets and Treasury Solutions group was created with a view toward more closely aligning and integrating the coverage of clients with treasury-related needs.

The rationale for the integration was a direct response to the needs of clients, which overlap considerably between the two business areas. There is a broad business context between market transactions and transaction banking.

FX4Cash

The new structure is already delivering advantages for clients in foreign exchange (FX) and cross-currency payments. FX4Cash leverages Deutsche Bank's expertise as a leading cash management provider with its renowned capabilities as a global FX powerhouse to offer a broad range of solutions for cross-currency payments and receipts.

FX4Cash now has more than 1,000 clients. The integration of the two businesses has helped to further enhance the geographical reach and currency scope of FX4Cash, and enabled the addition of funding and debit functions and payables and receivables capabilities. FX4Cash is fully integrated into Deutsche Bank's client access channels, including the Bank's online cash and liquidity management platform, SWIFT, host-to-host and Eurogiro.

FX4Cash makes managing incoming foreign currency receipts more straightforward and less expensive. Often, there are multiple manual steps along the payment chain, little rate transparency, manual processing and limited options on settlement. With FX4Cash Receivables, Deutsche Bank delivers order and choice for incoming commercial receipts. For each currency, Deutsche Bank can convert and remit funds to a designated account in up to 39 predefined target currencies.

Since launching FX4Cash, Deutsche Bank has also noticed a rapid and sustained increase in clients making payments in emerging currencies such as Chinese yuan, Indian rupee and Russian roubles.

Treasury Platform on Autobahn

Since 1996, Autobahn has been connecting clients to Deutsche Bank's innovative electronic products and services. The latest addition is the Treasury platform on Autobahn, the bank's award-winning electronic distribution service.

The Treasury platform on Autobahn provides real-time liquidity data, including Deutsche Bank and third-party bank account information, allowing treasurers to identify foreign exchange exposures, liquidity shortfalls and investment opportunities.

The platform also offers clients all the tools required to view rates, initiate active trades and manage their investment portfolio. In addition, clients gain real-time access to FX rate capture and deal initiation and can actively manage and hedge their FX exposures throughout the day.

The Treasury platform's post-execution services, including automated matching and reconciliation tools, form part of a system of checks and balances designed to ensure liquidity positions are accurately forecasted and implemented.

Overall, the Treasury platform on Autobahn ensures an integrated approach to treasury and liquidity management, reduces complexity and improves efficiencies across the value chain of a treasurer. The ability to view a consolidated liquidity position across regions, currencies and banking relationships provides greater transparency and control and the ability to mitigate risk exposures and maximise investment returns.

US Dollar and Euro Clearing

Deutsche Bank continues to leverage its unique position as a leader in euro and US dollar clearing by investing in tools and products to support clients. We are committed to introducing new services that provide tangible benefits for our corporate and financial institution clients along with their end clients.

For financial institutions, Deutsche Bank has recently enhanced its services for the US dollar and euro. The new Asia Accelerator tool offers accelerated processing of US dollar-denominated payments during US night-time hours. Hence, clients in Asia can have their payments processed during their own early business hours.

Asia Accelerator was developed to address inefficiencies in the settlement of Asia's high volume of US dollar-denominated payments as a result of different clearing time-zones. The industry practice of processing payment instructions received on a "first-come, first-served" basis has historically resulted in delays in processing intra-Asia US dollar payment requests until the next working day.

Deutsche Bank's Asia Accelerator leverages sophisticated algorithms and text-recognition technology to identify and prioritise intra-Asia US dollar payments within the standard payments architecture of the banking system. Auto-repair capabilities facilitate straight-through processing to ensure that financial institution clients can enjoy same-day intra-Asia US dollar payments processing. As a result of intelligent prioritisation, liquidity is automatically directed and recycled to active market participants. Clients can therefore reduce the liquidity required for their payment book or grow their business without incremental liquidity costs.

Deutsche Bank has continued to invest in its global platform. Global consistency is at the heart of our offering and we know how important it is for clients to use a single global platform and for their provider to have a single operating model and state-of-the-art electronic inquiry system. The growing trade between emerging markets countries reinforces the importance of this model. Emerging market clients want an Internet-based channel for information and enquiry but they also want local service. As international payment streams in emerging markets become more significant, the benefits of our approach will become ever more apparent.