Until a few years ago, virtual account technology was one of those amazing solutions touted by the largest banks as a competitive differentiator in an increasingly commoditized cash management business. But now it has spread far and wide and leading domestic banks are able to deploy its use to retain customers and compete with their larger global counterparts.

The value is that virtual accounts, when deployed effectively, can improve cash collection significantly. Through cash centralization they also aid account receivable reconciliation that for many companies can be a manual and error-prone task.

The Asset Triple A Treasury, Trade, Supply Chain and Risk Management Awards this year once again witnessed an increase in the use of virtual accounts. What used to be only offered to MNCs and large local corporates, is now also available to medium-sized companies looking to improve their account receivables function.

DBS helped Chinachem, a property group in Hong Kong, to revamp and centralize the manual process of cheque collection and reconciliation. It also enabled the bank to streamline its bank account structure.

Lundbeck, a global pharmaceutical company, also deployed virtual accounts to manage its local distributorship for domestic sales in South Korea. BNP Paribas, working with Shinhan Bank as its partner bank, provided a tailor-made solution to set up an effective reconciliation process combined with a host-to-host automated payments process linked with its enterprise resource planning.

The same challenge faced Ingram Micro Private, an IT distribution services company for mobile phones and IT hardware in India. With a presence in 38 cities, it deals with both electronic payments and cheques that makes reconciliation a challenge. DBS offered Ingram Micro an automated alternative through a static virtual account solution that reduces or eliminates manual intervention as much as possible. In addition, a customized report is sent every 15 minutes in addition to the end-of-day report.

To view today’s set of Triple A Best Solutions, please click here.

In the coming days, The Asset will be revealing additional winning treasury solutions. Winners will be honoured at a gala dinner on April 25 2017 at the 3rd The Asset Treasury and Trade Summit.

Contact us to attend this networking event and awards ceremony.