Read the full article published in Euromoney, 5 April 2024, here.
Managing Director Manoj Mistry comments on IBOS Association’s newest member, Santander Consumer Bank AG, and further expanding the network. Additionally, the article features comments from Carlos Hazas de Oñate, multinationals director at Santander Europe and a member of the Board of IBOS.
1. Giving an example of how companies use the network to achieve cash management optimisation that might not be possible across a single bank.
“Companies can use our network for liquidity pooling across the eurozone and sweep their accounts across multiple banking entities to ensure they are not funding overnight in one country when they have a surplus elsewhere,” Manoj Mistry, managing director at IBOS, tells Euromoney.
2. Saying that this is the kind of cash management service for which the network was originally set up 30 years ago. But it has changed in the decades since.
“IBOS used to be the middleware connecting banks and their payments messages,” says Mistry. “But it is now much more of a banking eco-system built around common standards, allowing a bank to hold onto a home market customer by enabling it to multi-bank the client across jurisdictions.” He adds: “Companies are getting quite aggressive in their demands on banks. One member recently told me that it had retained a very large customer that had put out an RfP. Partly that success was based on the incumbent bank’s access across the IBOS network.”
3. I say that one of the priorities now for IBOS is to expand geographic coverage. This effort has seen some setbacks for example with Standard Chartered’s joining in 2020 not working out:
“It was the nemesis of Covid,” Mistry recalls. “Standard Chartered joined at what turned out to be the worst possible moment. They got a lot of referrals in from other banks but could not onboard clients due to face-to-face authentication and verification requirements in Singapore and Hong Kong at the time.”
4. It was a troubling moment for the network when SVB collapsed last year. But over 80% of its domestic clients are now back with the bank and First Citizens’ ownership makes it a much better proposition.
“SVB was previously more a source of referrals of entrepreneurial growth companies in the US to other banks in the network,” Mistry says. “Now those members are also benefiting because First Citizens will be capable in Q4 2024 to handle referrals of their customers into the US.”
