TOMATO CATCH-UP: Newsletter Issue 155 – Dec. 2012

Your monthly resource on working capital, process optimization and issues relating to the world of corporate treasurers from Tomato's team of bankers and IT specialists!

Introduction:

It’s hard to believe but 2012 is nearing its end! It has been a privilege to present you News ‘n Views throughout the year.

After a challenging year, congratulate yourself and your team members on jobs done well and on the relationships that helped make it happen. And then, slow down a little for the remainder of the year! We plan to do the same!

Haben Sie unsere Weihnachstskarte erhalten? Falls nicht, hier das diesjährige Zitat von Albert Einstein:

Nicht alles, was zählt, ist zählbar,
und nicht alles, was zählbar ist, zählt.

Unser Kommentar: Immer wieder machen wir die Erfahrung, erst wenn wir uns mit dem nicht Zählbaren befassen, wir optimale Lösungen dafür finden, was zählbar ist. 

Wir wünschen Ihnen und Ihren Angehörigen Gesundheit und Glück im neuen Jahr.

Ihr Tomato Team

 

In Today's Issue:

TOMATO UPDATES

FINANCE,BANKING AND IT

CAREER AND MANAGEMENT

 

Santa Claus Apéro, Nov. 27, 2012

At this year’s Apéro we once again enjoyed the company of colleagues and clients over wine and appetizers prepared by Lesley Riwar, our friend from Ghana.

To those of you who made it, thanks again for joining us to celebrate.

Martin looked back to when he founded Tomato in 1992, when he added the Lugano branch in 1995 and Milan in 1997, as well as contracts with partners in Paris, Munich and Boston. He then pointed to ongoing projects such as Telcom mass payments from 1996 to 2004 and bank projects from 2004 to 2008. He also invited guests to share milestones in their careers and lives in 1992, 1995, 2000 or 2008.

Martin and Sven Olof referred to the idea championed by Malcolm Gladwell in Outliers that it requires 10.000 hours for someone to become a master in his area of expertise. Sven suggested that each guest could become a master in five years full time work in whatever he/she wants to excel be it playing an instrument, starting a new career etc.

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Treasury Convention Recap

Die Treasury Convention in Rust im Europapark on Nov. 29/30 war sehr erfolgreich.

Am ersten Tag war das Motto „Get treasury connected“. Martin war einer von vier Experten, die ihre Erfahrung mit SEPA und dessen Fahrplan an einem Panelgespräch an die Teilnehmer weitergaben.

Der SEPA Umsetzungstermin liegt ungünstig am Ende des Jahresabschlusses von vielen Konzernen. Martin Bellin schlug vor, warum nicht die Treasury Convention am 28.11.2013 als Ender der SEPA Fleissarbeit zu setzen?

Am zweiten Tag fanden BELLIN Customer Workshops mit Themenschwerpunkt zu tm5 und den neuesten Entwicklungen statt. Auch hier nahm Martin an einem interaktiven Workshop teil.

An der parallel laufenden Ausstellung konnten dann Martin und Andreas Carl auf spezifische Situationen von Besuchern eingehen.

Wollen Sie mehr über die Themen, die an der Convention besprochen wurden, wissen? Nehmen Sie mit Martin via Martin.Schneider@tomato.ch or 044 814 2001 Kontakt auf.

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Postfinance hebt Freigrenze bei Rejectkosten ER/ES und ASR auf

Zurzeit verrechnet Postfinance den Aufwand für die Nachbearbeitung von Rejects erst oberhalb einer Grenze von 3% innerhalb eines Monats weiter. Die Rejecttaxe beträgt CHF 0.70 pro Beleg. Per 1. Januar 2013 wird die Freigrenze von 3% Rückweisungen aufgehoben.

Diese Meldung erschien im November Newsletter für Softwarehersteller und –händler. Sie listet die wichtigsten Fehlerquellen und gibt Tips wie Kunden unterstützt werden können. 

Der Newsletter ist nicht online abrufbar. Sie können jedoch eine Kopie der Meldung von Andreas.Carl@tomato.ch anfordern.

Martin’s Kommentar:

Vor ein paar Jahren fügte ein IT Mitarbeiter eines Clienten fälschlicherweise im ESR Drucklauf einen Leerschlag ein. Der Client versandte 200.000 orange Zahlscheine (ESR). Als die Kunden dies am Postschalter zahlen wollten, war der ESR für die Postbeamten an der Maschine nicht automatisch lesbar und musste von den Postmitarbeitern manuell eingetippt werden.

Zusammen mit dem Klienten und der Post koordinierten und entwickelten wir innert Tagesfrist eine kleine Software, die diesen Fehler erkannte. Die Software wurde in allen Poststellen eingeschleust, und die Software löschte sich mit einem Verfalldatum von 60 Tagen.

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MasterCard Introduces Credit Card with Display and Buttons

MasterCard Worldwide unveiled the first interactive payment card that uses MasterCard’s Display Card technology. The “Display Card” has the same size and similar function as a regular credit card, but it features an embedded digital display and a numerical keypad on the front. This allows a cardholder to generate a One-Time Password (OTP) as an authentication security measure.
(Press Release, Nov. 7, 2012…)

In deutsch: Kreditkarte mit Display und Tasten

Künftige Kreditkarten verfügen über einen kleinen LCD-Bildschirm sowie Touch-Buttons zum Erstellen einmalig gültiger Passwörter.
(Computerworld.ch…)

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SEPA Experts in Short Supply

Banks have been urging their clients to prepare for SEPA for several years. Now that the SEPA end date is getting closer, many companies are realizing that they need experts to help them prepare. Unfortunately, there aren’t nearly enough experts to satisfy the demand.

The article “Bottleneck Regarding Sepa Experts” in the latest Eurotreasurer newsletter explains what companies in search for experts learned. To sum it up, they found that due to the shortage of experts, the cost of hiring one is going to be steep but necessary. Banks at least have experts so they need to ensure that they can keep the teams together.
(Eurotreasurer issue 22|2012…) pdf

Visit our SEPA Schedule (e) or SEPA-Fahrplan (d) pages for critical information and call us with your situation. Martin Schneider has the expertise that you may be looking for.

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Basel III’s Impacts on Treasury

A GTNews article published on Dec. 3, examines what effect Basel III can potentially have in terms of funding. It also discusses trade finance and hedging.

The Basel Committee on Banking Supervision set the Basel III rules as result of the 2008 crisis. These rules require banks to maintain “loss-absorbing capital” of at least 7% of risk-weighted assets in order to protect against potential losses. They are supposed to go in effect on January 1, 2013.

In the article Implications of Basel III on treasury, Lothar Meenen of Deutsche Bank explains:

  • The fundamentals of Basel III
  • Treasury impacts
  • Time frame
  • U.S. delay (also see article in Eurotreasurer 21/2012, p. 4)
  • Questions a treasurer should ask his bank in terms of risk, services, and pricing.

(Full story…) requires registration, free.

Martin’s Comment:

Basel III is not a good solution because it tries to rule human behavior with complex rules. Why not adopt simple laws as in Canada that a max of x% of the assets may be lent? Or as simple as “A bank is required to hold x% of its own capital!

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Implementing a Payment Factory Remains Hard but…

An Eurotreasurer article suggest that “Implementing Payment Factory Remains Hard.” It cites Patrick Coleman, regional general manager at IT2 Treasury Solutions, who said that “different formats, security standards and transmission protocols typify a confusing array of legacy technology. It’s a picture attended by inefficiency and risk.”

Other considerations elaborated on in the article include project management and organizational change.
(Details in Eurotreasurer issue 21|2012, p. 6…) pdf

Martin’s Comment:

Implementing a payment factory is not as hard as the Eurotreasurer article suggests. We at Tomato have delivered several payment factories over the last four years. The hurdles described are correct, but with our coaching, the implementations we were involved in were successful.

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Study on How CFOs Manage Finance Technology

A study published in FCO.com Research found that CFOs search ultimately for systems that can adapt quickly to changing priorities and processes.

For the study, Workday conducted a series of 9 in-depth interviews and an electronic survey of 202 senior finance executives at large North American companies. The study discusses

  • Key pain points that CFOs experience with their financial-management system
  • Strategies for upgrading and replacing systems
  • Perspectives on new finance technologies (including SaaS/cloud-based systems)
  • Ways in which CFOs are looking to take on systems-related challenges by combining longstanding practices with fresh, innovative solutions.

(Abstract and link to download the 24 pg Report in pdf…)

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Requirements for Optimizing Banking Strategy and Operations

The banking sector is encountering the most radical changes it has ever experienced, says Robert Straw of KPMG. In the blog “From strategy to implementation – Optimizing banking business and operating models’, Mr. Straw lists a number of changes that banks need to respond to in order to stay relevant. They include

  • Banks will become smaller, focused and decentralized.
  • With no or low growth, the focus is on relevance; “knowing what you want to be, for whom and with which products and services and at what price.”
  • Improvements in IT architectures are required to accommodate new business and operating models.
  • Banks need a clear, deliberate business model, i.e. navigation system providing different perspectives.

(Details on changes in banking and elaborations of these four points and further insights...)

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PWC’s 10Minute Articles Condensed from Longer Studies

PWC is offering a series of “10Minute” articles on risk, talent, strategy, growth, sustainability etc.

With everybody being so busy, they have designed each 10Minutes piece “to distill key information and insights on various topics relevant to your business.” Issues covered are often based on longer studies and white papers that can be accessed online or in print.

For example, a recent 10Minute article dealt with environmental and social risk. The 8-page pdf is titled “Risk ready: New approaches to environmental and social change.” Page 2 offers a page “At a Glance” that summarizes the issues involved. It is to-the-point information condensed and hugely helpful to anyone involved in or interested in these issues.
(10 Minutes on environmental and social risk…)

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Five Crucial Questions a Mentor Asks

The New York Times Sunday edition features a column “Corner Office” in which the CEO is interviewed about being a boss, what matters in a job, and what he/she looks for when hiring.

This Sunday’s interview was titled “A Good Mentor Never Tramples on Big Dreams.“ Tony Tjan, chief executive of Cue Ball, a venture capital firm based in Boston, comes across as a truly enlightened leader.  

For example, he and one his partners have developed a good framework for mentoring. He suggests that a mentor should pose these questions:

  1. What is it that you really want to be and do?
  2. What are you doing really well that is helping you get there?
  3. What are you not doing well that is preventing you from getting there?
  4. What will you do differently tomorrow to meet those challenges?
  5. How can I help, and where do you need the most help?

If you are, or if you planning to be, a mentor, think about answers you’d like to hear and how you would respond. If you’re out there working hard every day, think about how you would answer these questions. It may give you confidence to approach someone who can and is willing to listen and do something for you.

This may be your best frame of reference for a transition into the New Year and a new framework for your job. Think about it, write down your thoughts!

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From the Desk of Regula Spottl, Greensboro, North Carolina

 

Last time I wrote about my trip to Tuscany and among various excursions a visit to La Fabbrica del Panforte at Sovicille  near Siena. This bakery employs between 15 and 20 people. A few processes are automated, but much of the work is done by hand.

For example, one person takes cookie dough pieces coming out of a machine and places them on a platform that transports them to the next process. One person puts eight cookies in a plastic box; and another one wraps Pan Forte in a fancy paper.

Most of these processes could be automated. I mentioned this to one of my friends and his answer made me think. These people have jobs and they work in a friendly environment (there were jokes and caricatures of them on the walls). For many people it’s having work and a paycheck at the end of the month that matters, not the quality and easy of work. It’s good to remember of days when we’re not crazy about our work.

Your Tomato

Regula Spottl

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