LIVING THE CHANGEThe bank
for a changingworld
#8 SEPTEMBER 2016
THE MAGAZINE FOR EUROPEAN TREASURERS
MANAGING THE LEVERS OF CHANGE ALIGNING TRANSFORMATION ENABLERS TO MOTIVATIONAL DRIVERS
INTERVIEW WITH JULIE MEYER RE-INVENTING BUSINESS MODELS
ADAPT TO COMPETE CASH MANAGEMENT AND TRADE PERSPECTIVES
ECONOMIC REVIEW THE DOMINANT POSITION OF CENTRAL BANKS
CONTENTS
This document is for information purpose only and is directed at professional clients. It is not intended as an offer for the purchase or sale of any financial instrument, investment product or service. This material is not intended to provide, and should not be relied on for legal, tax, accounting, regulatory or financial advice.
Recipient should seek independent legal, financial and other professional advice before investing in any product, subscribing to any service or entering into any transaction described herein. Neither BNP Paribas SA nor any of its affiliates will be responsible for the consequences of the recipient relying upon any information contained herein or for any potential error or omission. This document may not be reproduced or disclosed (in whole or in part) to any other person nor be quoted or referred to in any document without the prior written permission of BNP Paribas SA.
BNP Paribas SA is authorised by the Autorité de Contrôle Prudentiel et de Résolution and regulated
by the Autorité des Marchés Financiers in France. BNP Paribas SA is incorporated in France with Limited Liability with capital 2,492,925,268 EUR. Registered office: 16 Boulevard des Italiens, 75009 Paris, France. RCS Paris 662 042 449. www.bnpparibas.com. C BNP Paribas. All rights reserved.
Without prejudice to legal or regulatory obligations applicable to them, neither BNP Paribas SA nor any of its partners may be held liable of the financial consequences or of any other nature, resulting from information included herein.
UNDERSTANDING THE HURDLES OF CHANGE A coach perspective
REINVENTING BUSINESS MODELS An interview of Julie Meyer
RE-THINKING TREASURY How to remain competitive?
04MANAGING THE LEVERS OF CHANGE Aligning enablers and drivers
LEARNING TO “COOPETE” The power of difference
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TRADE DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION Three things to consider in the Trade business21
FOCUS IS PRODUCED BY BNP PARIBASEditor in chief: Anna Segura
Editor: Anne Selles
Thank you to all contributing writers
Publication date: SEPT 2016
Free magazine, may not be sold
Image source (cover and inside): Istock.
EVENTS CALENDAR Conferences for treasurers and links
THE FUTURE IS IN YOUR CARDS The payment cards environment24ECONOMIC REVIEW Central banks still dominant26JOURNEYS TO TREASURY The new report for finance professionals28
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We are on the road. Again.
There is dramatic change happening. It shouldn’t come as a surprise though. We have been there before. Professor Klaus Schwab, Founder and Executive Chairman of the World Economic Forum, has named our times The Fourth Industrial Revolution, “characterized by a fusion of technologies that is blurring the lines between the physical, digital and biological spheres”, in reference to the previous three revolutions that successively saw steam, electricity, electronics and information technology reinvent production and much more. Looking back even further, Ian Goldin and Chris Kutarna, from Oxford University, in their book Age of Discovery: Navigating the Risks and Rewards of Our New Renaissance, draw parallels with a particular century (1450-1550) in The Renaissance period where the likes of Da Vinci, Copernicus, Michelangelo and Columbus redefined science, education, manufacturing, etc. Then again indeed, great leaps forward had completely reshaped the world.
Unlike the boiling frog concept that you study in business schools (you know, that poor thing that died of not noticing the too slow and progressive rise in temperature of the water it was swimming in), we can today clearly feel this change is not gradual. It is instead coming at us at exponential speed. And that is scary. Luckily for us, fear is the most powerful driver of innovation – before wealth creation, pure curiosity and the desire for significance – and innovation is the only way forward for corporates. The one challenge that all firms need to embrace.
So how do you transform your company into an innovation factory? What are the inevitable hurdles you’ll face while trying to reinvent your model? How will you define the true purpose of your company in the future ecosystem you want to play in? Are clients, suppliers and competitors different animals or one and the same? What are the levers you can trigger to foster change? Those are some of the questions you, we, all need to ask ourselves. Those are the themes we will touch upon in this new issue of Focus that I hope you will enjoy reading.
To paraphrase Antoine Lavoisier – an 18th century French chemist, philosopher and economist at the same time – remember that “nothing is lost, nothing is created, everything changes.” So cheer up! You are in control. You just have to take a quick glance through your rear view mirror, keep in motion, and craft your own path. Your own road. Again.
JACQUES LEVETHead of Transaction Banking EMEA
WELCOME
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Living the Change#8 SEPTEMBER 2016
UNDERSTANDING THE HURDLES OF CHANGE
Anticipating the future, managing the grey areas that inevitably accompany a shif ting landscape, decision-making; navigating a changing world is a challenge that we all face. Of fering the unique perspective of an executive coach, Anna Gallotti provides an insider look at the nature of change.
In life, change is inherent. It is one of the most important indicators of the fact that we are alive. Because of our body’s metabolism, its growth and its ageing, our cells and every part of our body change every day. So since change is an integral part of our lives, why do we find it so difficult to adapt to it?
FOUR REASONS AT THE ROOT OF THE CHALLENGETo begin with, our brain uses up to 20% of our body’s oxygen and glucose. It is the main cause of how we consume energy. To preserve vitality, our brain therefore develops habits that use energy sparingly. We don’t spend time every morning thinking about why or how we brush our teeth, since tooth brushing is an activity that we perform automatically. However, when we face change, we have to act counter to our habits, which results in expending more energy. Paradoxically, even though we change every day, our body is programmed to save our psychic energy.
ANNA GALLOTTI
Anna Gallotti is an executive coach and owner of two companies, one in Paris and one in New York. She wrote a book in French and in English «Make the right choices».
Secondly, humans have learned to adapt to change since they are the driving force behind the process of change. The difficult part today is adapting to change’s fast pace. Change within enterprises, such as reorganisations, different procedures, new tools, etc. occur at an ever faster pace. The problem is the speed of change, rather than change itself.
Each one of us operates at two different paces: the pace of the mind and the pace of the heart. The first concerns our grasp of change and it is usually fast. The heart however has a slower rhythm. It needs time to come to terms with change. Think
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“ Every individual has a different way of adapting to change, according to his/her life history, his/her experience and mental structure.”
of simple events such as a change of address: how often do we take the old route, at least at first, without even thinking about it? It’s our heart that resists change and is still grieving over our old address. As long as we fight against these two different paces, instead of going along with change, we are wasting our energy.
The third factor is the lack of sense, i.e. meaning, as well as a sense of direction. By lack of meaning, I am focusing on asking ourselves questions such as ‘what does the future have in store for me, for my team, for my company?’ ‘Will it be something positive for me, my team, and my company?’ Lacking a sense of direction means asking ourselves: ‘Where am I heading?’ ‘Where is my department heading? ‘What is our purpose?’ Often changes follow one another so rapidly that it is difficult to make sense of them.
Finally, there are other factors behind resistance to change that are linked to individual characteristics. Every individual has a different way of adapting to change, according to his/her life history, his/her experience and mental structure. In view of this, what can we do to adapt to change, knowing that it is inevitable and we can only partially or inadequately control its pace?
ON AN INDIVIDUAL LEVELIn my work as coach I have noticed that managers, when dealing with change, often neglect the most important factor: recharging their batteries. Just as athletes prepare for their athletic competition by paying equal attention to exercise, rest, a healthy diet and psychological well-being, so should the manager heed their mental and physical balance
to cope with the psychological and physical energy that change demands.
Regular rest periods (away from electronic devices), a good mental attitude, some personal activity completely unrelated to work, regular physical exercise and a healthy diet are the main factors that will help managers cope with the rapid pace of change.
Another factor that helps us adapt to change is the capacity to step back. I am referring the PRP process described ty Tal Ben Shahar in his book The Pursuit of Perfect, reproduced below.
Permission: when we can’t step back, it means that we are overwhelmed by our emotions on a psychic level. The first step is therefore granting ourselves the benefit of emotions. Our education sometimes does not teach us to recognise emotions; that is why we feel that we do not harbour emotions or else that we have been forbidden to express them. However, it has been proven that the more we accept our emotions, the better we’ll be able to cope with them. In order to accomplish this, we must learn to recognize our emotional state, which means identifying and naming what we feel and subsequently assessing its intensity on a 1 (low) to 10 (very high) scale. This exercise may seem difficult at first, but, like most exercises, it becomes easier over time.
Once we have accepted our emotions, we can move on to the next stage, i.e. a “cognitive Restructuring”. Instead of considering change a trying, useless, incomprehensible event, we can restructure our interpretation of change. Thus we can see change as a challenge leading to development rather than a threat. We can, for instance, focus on certain issues, such as: what lies within the realm of my responsibility and what doesn’t? What can I accomplish with the time and means I have? What is my role and my added value in this situation?
Perspective: dealing with a situation in a longer time perspective. Often, if we place ourselves in a three-to-five year time span, we manage to look at the present from a different angle. One/three years from now, what will stand out as truly important from what I have done today?
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ON A COLLECTIVE LEVELIt is a question of starting a dialogue to discuss what happens to each person in relation to change and to find a collective solution to make the best use of it. Managers often shun this solution for fear of opening a Pandora’s Box and having to “suffer” their colleagues’ negative emotions without being able to deal with them. I have noticed that this twofold fear on the part of managers stems from two misunderstandings.
First, they mistake listening for negotiation. Listening does not mean starting a negotiation; it simply means sharing opinions to speed up the emotional assimilation of change. The contract drawn up with the team should be clear: we are here to share, not to review, the terms of change.
Furthermore, managers mistake the pace of the heart with the pace of the mind. If their colleagues have a slow heart pace, it doesn’t necessarily mean that they won’t implement change. Co-workers have to be allowed to express their worries to overcome them.
In fact, it has been proven that the more managers listen and share, the quicker and more efficient will be the implementation of change. It is wrong to think that co-workers will be demotivated by change itself. Yet, they certainly will be if their manager imposes upon them a change that doesn’t make sense to them.
Instead of focusing solely on the final objective – i.e. the rapid implementation of change demanded by the company – today’s managers should take time to heed their own emotional state, as well as the state of their teams. “Slowing down to go faster” is healthier from a lifestyle perspective, key to being efficient and effective in turbulent periods, and enables managers to interpret change as an opportunity rather than “another obstacle that has to be overcome”.
Read more on: www.share-coach.com
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MANAGING THE LEVERS OF CHANGE Leading a successful company transformation requires an integrated approach and change must become part of the business-as-usual processes. Constance Chalchat, Head of Change Management - BNP Paribas Corporate and Institutional Banking, describes how to align the company hard transformation enablers to its staf f soft motivational drivers.
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Driven by new technologies and new regulations, change continues to dominate the business world. But despite the universal acknowledgment of Darwin’s assertion that “it is not the strongest of the species that will survive, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change”, many organisations continue to struggle to manage change effectively. The question is why?
The answer is multifaceted. Many commentators point to the absence of the requisite ‘hard levers’ of change being in place – a clear, well-communicated vision and strategy; identifying the tangible actions to advance the change agenda; acquiring the necessary skills to execute a new way of working. Others identify that change management is not a command and control exercise led only by senior management, but should instead focus on the ‘soft levers’ of change – for example, that staff feel that they are active participants in the transformation process and, more importantly, value the benefit it can provide.
Traditional analysis of the success or failure of executing change has therefore been pretty binary, focusing on either hard or soft levers. But in an increasingly connected, fast-paced environment, and with the growing population of millennials searching for meaning and purpose, effective change management demands a fully integrated approach – i.e. where the hard enablers of company transformation align with soft staff motivational drivers.
THREE ENABLERS FOR A SUCCESSFUL COMPANY TRANSFORMATION…
1 A DUAL-SPEED VISIONFocusing first on the hard levers of change, it is vital that organisations adopt a dual-speed approach, which spans both the long and short-term.
Given the accelerated pace of disruption in the eco-system in which it operates, no company has its future mapped out fully for the next five years. It’s impossible to do so. Yet, people need to know where you’re aiming to go and how you will get there.
CONSTANCE CHALCHAT
Constance Chalchat is Head of Change Management - Corporate and Institutional Banking at BNP Paribas. She joined the bank in 2001 and gradually evolved towards Transformation, People Development, Marketing and Communication roles before being promoted to her current position in 2014.
Organisations therefore need to set long-term ambitions, while concurrently taking short-term, visible steps towards achieving that ambition.
Being ambitious is a matter of survival. Change often materialises faster than expected. As a result, incremental change may only result in spending time and energy on developing products or services that will already be obsolete when launched. Instead, a compelling, long-term and bold vision is more ‘future proof’, plus it inspires staff to design the future together.
To ensure that the vision remains relevant and front of mind, it is important to then take visible agile action towards achieving that long-term goal. Executing tactical and tangible solutions generates a buzz and sense of forward momentum, fuels staff motivation, and adds credibility to the long-term vision.
“ (...) effective change management demands a fully integrated approach – i.e. where the hard enablers of company transformation align with soft staff motivational drivers.”
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Stimulation: Once the vision has been shared, staff should be invited to contribute. They should want to participate to the transformation. Communication is central to achieving this, the content reflecting where employees stand in the change process: Why we are changing? Where we are going? How can we manage to succeed? How employees can contribute?
Education: For many, change is not natural. A new skill-set will be required for managers to embrace and foster change, and for staff to adopt it.
Coordination: When companies face uncertainty, a tendency can be to centralise, controlling top-down to navigate through dangerous waters. However, the risk with this is to miss the potential positive contributions of operational staff in close contact with clients and markets. Enabling teams on the ground to ‘test and learn’ in a coordinated way can help build rich collective intelligence to design the future together.
Celebration: Change is a bumpy road. Staff can get tired and stressed. Uncertainty is often correlated to budget cuts, for which internal events are a prime candidate. Yet, celebrations are the best way to link employees’ need for social connection with change. This builds confidence within the organisation that progress is being made. Even failures can be celebrated, as they often bring greater knowledge to the organisation.
3 TRANSFORMING MIND SETSFinally, technological advancements are often of lower importance compared to new mind sets. We can automate processes, and even predict decisions, but we cannot automate changes in human behaviours. Yet it’s when longstanding business expertise is combined with advanced analytics that you achieve outstanding results. It is how people use new technologies and best sell new solutions that will make a difference.
Central to shifting towards a new mind set is a commitment to ensure staff benefit from change. A successful transformation requires anticipating people’s concerns and building a persuasive case for change, which has to benefit the individuals as much as the company.
ALIGNING EMPLOYEES AND COMPANY INTERESTS TO SUSTAIN MOTIVATIONStaff motivation fuels transformation. The more you have, the faster and further you can go. Consequently, the other half of the change equation is how to best align the company-focused transformation enablers already discussed with staff motivational drivers. Broadly, there are three drivers to employ.
1 MEANINGFUL WORKThe first is meaningful work and the overall sense that staff are contributing to achieving the company’s vision. When sharing the vision, it’s imperative to focus both on the big picture and how employees’ roles relate to it. Be honest when acknowledging uncertainties or a roadblock; millennials in particular have a very low tolerance for inauthenticity.
2 CHANGE BECOMES A PROCESSNext, change has to become a process that is embedded in the organisation, not a series of chaotic actions that an organisation has to endure. If carefully orchestrated, change can bring tremendous results to a company; if not, it will be a demotivating factor that saps energy and focus. Planning change effectively comprises four core components: stimulation, education, coordination and celebration.
“ We can automate processes, and even predict decisions, but we cannot automate changes in human behaviours.”
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In acknowledging individual contributions and their importance to the process, celebrating progress and providing regular feedback are critical. Celebrations shouldn’t be limited to achieving long-term goals or major breakthroughs; instead, recognising ‘small’ wins can boost motivation tremendously. Celebrations are communal experiences that strengthen employee bonds, unite behind a commitment, and build a sense of shared destiny.
Providing constructive feedback is also extremely powerful. So recognise exceptional work; explain how failures can contribute to being better next time; and hold one-on-ones, taking this
opportunity to share the vision in a transparent manner and discuss how their work affects the company’s future. Employees will value these meetings as unique opportunities for them to make meaningful connections.
2 SOCIAL BONDING AND STRONG INTERPERSONAL RELATIONSHIPSNext, recognising that we are moving from an ‘era of information’ to ‘the age of relation’, the second most important driver of motivation is social bonding and strong interpersonal relationships.
Bonding is best achieved through collaboration and co-design, critical in the process of change described earlier. I’m always amazed by how collaborative projects can motivate talent. It can be further enriched by co-designing projects with clients. Co-design is a powerful tool to make everyone feel engaged and enhance trust in a company’s future. The more staff and customers participate in co-designing the future, the more they buy into it and actively contribute to the transformation.
“ Co-design is a powerful tool to make everyone feel engaged and enhance trust in a company’s future.”
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Set a dual-speed vision, in which employees understand and aspire to a long-term vision, and that their day-to-day work has meaningful purpose by taking agile steps to generate excitement and fuel staff motivation.
Manage change as a business as usual process, stimulating innovation, coordinating collaboration and co-design, and celebrating progress to meet individuals’ need for social bonding and strong fulfilment.
Reskill staff over time and change mindsets, helping staff feel that they are benefitting from change thanks to learning opportunities.
Furthermore, greater diversity, facilitated and demanded by the newer generations, adds depth and enriches working relationships, meeting the need for meaningful bonding. As such, diversity is as much a motivational driver as an enabler for change; it enables companies to leverage top talents wherever they are, whatever their background, thereby increasing the chances of successful transformation. In a changing world, diversity is not just the right thing to do, it is the best way to build a more comprehensive range of strategies and solutions that appeal to a diverse range of customers.
3 SELF-FULFILMENTThe third and final motivational driver focuses on self-fulfilment through autonomy, creative freedom and personal development. Engagement is best built by involving people in identifying problems, crafting solutions, and being accountable for their implementation. Employees are most engaged in jobs where they are trusted by their managers, given creative license, and the means to develop.
INTEGRATING INTERESTS IS THE WAY FORWARDIn an increasingly fluid business environment, the need to adapt is pervasive. And it’s not a ‘one-off event’; change is here to stay and will accelerate. Faced with the necessity to transform, companies have to manage change in uncertain, fast-evolving, eco-systems.
If well-orchestrated, it is possible to construct and launch a change management plan efficiently. But that is only part of the challenge. Its success over time depends on a company’s ability to make it meaningful to those who need to execute it – i.e. staff. True transformation therefore demands the integration of ‘hard’ transformation enablers and ‘soft’ staff motivational drivers. In a nutshell, the future of change management is neither hard, nor soft, but firm.
TRANSFORMATION TIPS
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Living the Change#8 SEPTEMBER 2016
LEARNING TO «COOPETE»
Big companies and startups have a lot to learn from each other. Working jointly, they can enrich the market place with new valuable products and of ferings. Pointing out emerging models, Vanessa Fraiberger draws a picture of the new business operating lanscape in which both disruptors and incumbents have a role to play.
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Discussing how digital has the potential to disrupt an entire industry sector is nothing new. Car manufacturers and rentals, hoteliers, music, media and entertainment companies, and physical retailers have all felt the sharp shock of disintermediation. Entire new markets have been born, which are predominantly peer-to-peer based. Digital disruptors are unafraid to challenge large incumbents in the name of eliminating inefficiencies and creating value from otherwise idle or under-utilised assets, all in exchange for a modest fee for implementing, maintaining and optimising the marketplace.
Industries that have experienced revolutionary change were generally considered inviolable; they were regulated, protected by licences, or provided a service or value that was perceived no other industry or entity could offer. That was until we discovered that these barriers were in fact no barriers at all. The same services could be offered « better » (in the end user’s opinion at least) by combining rented assets, a platform (or marketplace) that enabled users to offer/seek services, and cutting edge algorithms.
In these markets, this revolutionary operating model has become the new normal over the past five years. During this time, this new model has also enabled new players (the American GAFAs, the Asian BATs and others) to redesign and control the economics of the marketplace.
VANESSA FRAIBERGER
Vanessa is in charge of Transaction Banking 2.0 at BNP Paribas. Her experience in the group spans 10 years of infrastructure and energy financing and cross-cultural negotiations. She is a lawyer and a financing specialist by training and has an MBA from INSEAD. Recently, her focus has evolved towards the strategic, cultural and organizational aspects of business transformation.
“ The most visible start-ups focus on a single service, offering a combination of «client-first» approach, fee transparency, a strong brand and an assertive marketing message. ”
The loudest and most visible start-ups focus on a single service, offering a combination of «client-first» approach, fee transparency, a strong brand and an assertive marketing message. Vis-à-vis the corporate banking sector, they play off banks’ inefficiencies and sluggish reactivity, and champion «trust and transparency» issues resulting from the multiple bank scandals that have taken place since the sub-prime crisis in 2008.
WHAT DOES THIS MEAN FOR ‘ESTABLISHED’ INCUMBENTS?
In the banking arena, it actually seems that recognised players are not expected to roll over and die. Why? Because few, if any, challengers are really keen to become a fully-fledged corporate bank. Instead, they focus on offering a clean, focused service for a fee, unburdened by the past. This approach can fit nicely with established banks’ existing frameworks, which can support them or process part of their service. What a number of fintechs pursue today is therefore coopetition, a subtle mix of competition and cooperation, whereby the low cost start-up and the incumbent learn from each other, functioning as a team: the former seeking to achieve necessary
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“ Failing to anticipate change, leads to inertia and ultimately, irrelevance.”
scale and access to a much sought-after corporate client base, and the latter learning to develop greater agility.
Established incumbents – including BNP Paribas – are responding by reinventing themselves, revisiting processes, systems, and indeed values, to answer the fundamental questions: what purpose do we serve? What is our role in this environment with rapidly changing rules?
Irrespective of an incumbent’s specific industry, the core purpose of established players is to offer customers a safe and trustworthy ecosystem in which to operate; to support them navigate new regulation; to assist them in their fight against cyber-crime; to share insight and expertise to provide competitive advantage; and to do this in a lean and efficient manner. If they do not offer this ecosystem, if they resist the digital natives, if they miss the opportunity to re-design their solutions and services to drive the system’s economics, then yes, incumbents are probably ripe for complete disruption.
The biggest challenge – and indeed danger – faced by an incumbent is, well, that they are an incumbent. The perception, or more accurately misconception, is that disruption is uncertain in that there is no immediate crisis. Failing to anticipate change, leads to inertia and ultimately, irrelevance.
Another major challenge is that established players are not digital natives. The beliefs and expectations of incumbents’ employees and management teams are based on the status quo. Challenging ourselves to think and act differently, to disrupt our own ecosystem, requires a leap of faith that is extraordinarily hard given the pressures to ‘deliver
today’. This is the traditional innovators’ dilemma: the world changes slowly until it doesn’t – as such, it is difficult to feel the urgency to adapt.
So, how do you act when you don’t know how an industry is going to unfold? At BNP Paribas, we test and learn by doing; we challenge the status quo in every business line and every functional team. In an area as service-heavy and IT-dependent as flow banking, we are investing in developing people skilled at bridging the IT-business gap, and transversal functional teams that rethink processes and solutions jointly with clients. We learn to embrace coopetition, partnering with Fintechs and soon hopefully also with RegTechs (which are viewed by some as the next big frontier), to develop new, agile, efficient and relevant solutions.
Amid all this change though, one element remains constant: a firm focus on our corporate clients’ experience. Combining technology with tradition, we aim to streamline, de-layer, optimize, and coopete, all while focusing on strengthening relationships with our customers – something which originated with the merchant banker and the goldsmith and which remains at the core of banking.
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REINVENTING BUSINESS MODELS
FOCUS interviews Julie Meyer, the businesswoman, entrepreneur and author. Julie is the founder and CEO of Ariadne Capital, a venture capital firm, she is a Managing Partner at the Ariadne Capital Entrepreneurs (ACE) Fund, Ariadne Ecosystem Economics™ Fund, and is the founder of EntrepreneurCountry. Vanessa Fraiberger, Head of Transaction Banking 2.0 at BNP Paribas asks the questions.
1 JULIE, CAN YOU TELL US A BIT ABOUT YOURSELF? I am an American by birth and have lived in Europe for 28 years. I went to business school at INSEAD, which was a big turning point in my life: INSEAD creates global citizens, and I really believe the future is driven by global citizens who think conceptually and multidisciplinary. As my family still lives in Palo Alto (California), this gives me a helpful perspective on the Silicon Valley.
2 WHAT IS IT YOUR CORE FOCUS, WHAT DO YOU DO AT ARIADNE CAPITAL?
I have always worked on a pan-European basis. After I graduated in 1997, I did a lot of the early internet deals in companies like lastminute.com, WGSN, Silicon.com and Arc Course. I set up the network First Tuesday, connecting entrepreneurs and financiers across the continent. In 2000, I set up Ariadne Capital, my current business. Since then, we have done over half a billion worth of transactions and investments working with
entrepreneurs across Europe and catching some of the early European game changers like Skype, Zopa (the first P2P business globally), or Monitise (which was an early example of Ecosystem Economics® in action for mobile banking). And we are now expanding our platform to invest across the continent. We just acquired an asset management firm in Malta and we are looking at other acquisitions.
3 LOOKING AT INCUMBENTS, HOW DO YOU SEE THEM GOING ABOUT REINVENTING THEIR BUSINESS MODEL TODAY?I am seeing three ways they go about that:
The first is the well-worn model of transforming through shedding businesses, investing and acquiring. I think the evidence shows that a lot of those M&A transactions don’t actually lead to value, but that’s still a clear path to transformation.
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5 WHAT IS “ECOSYSTEM ECONOMICS”? Today everyone is talking about “ecosystems” and tech platform companies. For me, it is not about technology as this is a layer transforming all industries; the winners of the digital age are the companies who understand their role in the ecosystem and are organizing the economics for it. So it turns into controlling the rules, creating wealth for the various stakeholders and optimizing the ‘system level win’.
The winners are not just looking internally at their business, they understand that consumers drive purchases, that the world is driven by networks, and this makes exponential growth the norm. They aim to engage with a community: they convey the message that they have the brand and desired APIs to be the platform of choice in the industry, which allows them to leverage digital enablers who in turn build onto their platform. They also look to harness whatever “excess capacity” is available in their sector and to connect it onto the platform (in the same way AirBnB has enabled spare bedrooms to become a revenue stream). In doing so, they create a model which is no longer a traditional bank, insurance company, transportation company etc.: it is now a platform inside an ecosystem.
A second way is to invest from the income statement, create new products, change the sales teams etc. In this model, you can run into issues of cannibalization and incentive structures.
The third way that I feel works best could be described as “investing from the balance sheet into the income statement”. It means allocating CAPEX to build new revenue streams. The way it works is to create ‘co-managed accounts’ from good size businesses that are still living in an analog world, and build digital revenues on top of them. The objective is to move these assets from a world which is about shipping products (in whatever form), to building life-time value per user – and capital allocation is necessary to achieve that.
4 CONCRETELY, HOW DO LEADING PLAYERS GO ABOUT BUILDING DIGITAL REVENUE STREAMS ON TOP OF ANALOG ONES?Today’s digital entrepreneurs are far ahead not because they are smarter but because they are wired in a different way and are able to see the future, while people running large companies are concerned about scaling and building in a stable way. Those are two crucial skills and it’s very rare for people to do both. We see a future whereby large companies need to engage systematically and consistently with their high growth businesses built by the best digital enablers to transform themselves.
We see lots of large businesses where the CFO is trying to lift his hands off the way the current business works (which is kind of fortified with SAP or another IT architecture), but there is still no clear sense yet of where a predictable revenue stream will emerge. We see all sorts of large businesses in different industries where that change is happening, and not many finished products yet - which we could refer to as “ecosystem economy firms”.
“ Today’s digital entrepreneurs are far ahead not because they are smarter but because they are wired in a different way and are able to see the future, while people running large companies are concerned about scaling and building in a stable way. ”
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6 WHAT ARE THE BIGGEST CHALLENGES FOR LARGE COMPANIES WHO AIM AT BECOMING DIGITAL PLATFORMS AND ECOSYSTEM LEADERS? I see several challenges. Existing architectures, such as SAP that unite finance and technology, are one of them. They hold the two sides of the structure and allow them to work together. They serve as a backbone to the organization today, but the architecture of a digital organization might be different. Understanding how to build a new architecture requires a clear understanding of the new revenue models, including the transformational effect of the organization’s data.
Another major challenge is around valuation and KPIs. Ultimately, businesses are valued by the market. So, shareholders have to agree that digitally transformed companies will be valuable in a new way, using a concept of Network Asset Value for instance. This would translate into revenue streams over a user base or network of connected users. Today, some large organizations can boast hundreds of thousands of employees, clients or even end users – but who, apart from Facebook, can say these are connected in a network?
I believe that we have 10 years of change ahead of us, with two models running in parallel: I wouldn’t
be surprised if soon, CFOs start reporting in two different ways to the market: the usual one with quarterly earnings etc., and also with a new set of intangible KPIs based on the knowledge about and connection with end-customers – and the tangible monetization opportunities this will translate into. Digital P&L will, in time, be used to develop a new model of enterprise value. We are going through a whole period of change, where large companies can’t simply go about saying “we have decided to value ourselves in a different way”.
In all fairness, the market seems to have already accepted the idea of a new financial architectural structure and exponential growth based on data-fueled monetization opportunities. This is reflected in the enormous market capitalizations of some of the unicorns and GAFAs of this world: if you look at the balance sheet of the Google or Facebook for example, they have an implicit goodwill factor directly driven by all the data they have and its huge monetization opportunities - nobody else is writing their annual report that way. Ecosystem Economics® is a registrered trademark and the IP of Ariadne Capital.
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Living the Change#8 SEPTEMBER 2016
RE-THINKING TREASURY TO STAY COMPETITIVE
Remaining competitive in a complex and uncertain environment has become a daily challenge for every organisation. Vincenzo Di Lena highlights that by taking a holistic approach to the financial value chain – namely leveraging both a streamlined cash management structure and an efficient supply chain finance programme – Treasury is helping to meet this challenge by positively af fecting working capital.
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More regulation and more cautious market participants. These are just two outcomes of the financial crisis, which has in turn led to the availability of external sources of credit to shrink. Consequently, organisations have shifted their focus to internal funding opportunities. Cue the increasingly important role of the Treasury function, whose primary task is to uncover hidden sources of capital and unlock working capital. The new mantra is simply stated: free-up trapped cash, and diversify internal and external sources of capital to reduce risk and cost.
In a fast-paced global finance environment, companies have understood that optimising their working capital provides a competitive advantage, maintains the organisation’s health and keeps stakeholders satisfied. This translates into increasing market demand for banks and system providers to take a holistic approach to cash, trade and supply chain management. Why? Because the right mix of products, combined with an advisory approach from your banking provider, increases the efficiency of the cash conversion cycle and the entire financial value chain.
FIT FOR PURPOSE: HOW TO RE-THINK YOUR TREASURY SET UP
1 MASTER THE RIGHT PAYMENT AND COLLECTION METHOD: knowing which instrument is most suitable to your market is the key to reducing “float time” of collections and the cost of payments. A cheque payment is typically slower and riskier than a standard domestic payment. Virtual purchase cards are becoming valid alternatives to reduce administrative costs, improve days payable outstanding, and optimise reconciliation. Simplification is a must.
2 ENHANCE COLLECTIONS PROCESSES WITH NEW TECHNIQUES: creating visibility and transparency over your receivables improves reconciliation processes and enables more informed decisions on when and where cash will be. ‘Virtual Accounts’ is a topic trending right now in the
VINCENZO DI LENA
Vincenzo DI LENA is Senior Sales Cash Management Executive at BNP Paribas Zurich. He has worked in Cash & Treasury Management for more than 10 years for both major consulting firms and global transaction banking institutions.
“ (...) optimising working capital provides a competitive advantage, maintains the organisation’s health and keeps stakeholders satisfied.”
corporate world; they offer credible solutions to enhance the accuracy of forecasting and a positive impact on days sales outstanding. Leading to a straight-through reconciliation process, Virtual Accounts reduce the risk of chasing unpaid invoices by matching each supplier with a virtual IBAN.
3 STREAMLINE FUND MOVEMENTS WITH LIQUIDITY STRUCTURES: effective control of financial transactions within an organisation is crucial to minimising “bubbles” of cash tied up within an organisation’s working capital. Liquidity concentration techniques (“cash pooling”) and netting of intercompany invoices are useful cash management instruments to reduce the number of transactions, and in so doing increase visibility over cash now made available for investing.
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Living the Change#8 SEPTEMBER 2016
LEVERAGE THE CASH MANAGEMENT STRUCTURE FOR YOUR SUPPLY CHAIN PROGRAMME: whether a payment factory, shared service centre, or in-house bank, the centralisation of cash management provides the ideal platform for a supply chain finance programme. These structures provide banks with a single point of entry to corporates, equipping organisations’ Treasury teams with an intuitive dashboard to help manage payments and collections, receivables discounting, and supplier finance programmes.
DESIGN A FIT FOR PURPOSE SUPPLY CHAIN PROGRAMME: selecting the right factoring / reverse factoring programme helps your organisation build a strong reputation in the market and keeps it abreast of competitors. Besides unlocking
internal funds by improving the cash-to-cash cycle, it will positively affect the cost of external funding. Optimising the financial chain – from the processing of working capital items (receivables, payables and inventories) to their monetisation (receivables, payables and inventory programmes) – means looking holistically at cash management and supply chain. Ensuring the right mix of these two ingredients will lead the change.
Re-thinking the financial supply chain should be a core objective of every Treasury organisation. Decisions taken by Treasury teams are increasingly influential, affecting suppliers, clients and – ultimately – the bottom line. Therefore there is a real need for awareness around financial choices and the resulting benefits for all stakeholders. There is no “one size fits all” solution; instead, market regulations, market practices, and industry sector need to be taken into consideration. Do it right, and you create a strong “financial value chain” culture within your organisation, which will add value for your organisation.
“ Re-thinking the financial supply chain should be a core objective of every Treasury organisation.”
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DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION, A REVOLUTION IN THE TRADE BUSINESS!
The Trade business is facing profound transformations and the trend is not bound to get slower.Marguerite Burghardt shares a vision of the impacts and promises of digitisation in the trade environment.
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THE DIGITISATION OF TRADE: THREE FACTORS TO CONSIDER The banking industry is embracing digitisation, notably in Trade Services. More transparency, increased efficiency, and faster, more traceable transactions are just some of the benefits that market participants can derive from digitisation. The challenge is how to realise the potential that the digital transformation offers. To this end, Focus identifies three core factors to consider.
1 SEIZING NEW OPPORTUNITIES
The emergence of Fintechs – agile companies using new technologies or methods to enhance the efficiency and effectiveness of financial services – clearly has the capacity to transform the Trade Services landscape. There has been a vast rise in the number of service providers working in this space, and the level of investment has followed suit, growing exponentially in the past decade from USD1.8 billion in 2010 to USD19 billion in 2015.
From the perspective of established banks, the last few years has seen a focus on implementing digital platforms or portals to serve corporate clients. The emphasis has been on processing transactions faster; rather than relying on the established paper trail, attention has switched to ensuring clients need only to make the fewest clicks possible to enter data and can submit requests to their banks instantaneously. Additional functionality improvements include helping corporates have more control on their credit facilities and manage their payments with greater efficiency.
MARGUERITE BURGHARDT
Marguerite Burghardt joined BNP Paribas in 1992 and is currently Head of Strategy and Products for Corporate Trade and Treasury Solutions (CTTS) at BNP Paribas. The Strategy & Products Group covers the Trade Finance Competence Center, CTTS Strategy, Transaction Bank Group and Products Management at global level.
“ Going paperless is one of the most important developments to the deeply entrenched Trade Services practices.”
One of the nascent technologies that could revolutionise Trade Services is Blockchain. Defined as a shared distributed ledger, it has the power to track, verify, settle and permanently render all transactions public. The innovative nature of this technology affects not only payments and contracts, but also identity verification and more. With Blockchain technology, it would be conceivable to trace and authenticate a transaction, which is impossible in the current environment and the way transactions are processed.
2 RETHINKING TRADE OFFERINGS AND LEGISLATION
Going paperless is one of the most important developments to the deeply entrenched Trade Services practices.
Thanks to digitisation, the Trade offer is now evolving with the introduction of new products; a good example being the Bank Payment Obligation (BPO), which is based on electronic matching of data. Banks are also working on the deployment of new solutions leveraging opportunities created by FinTechs. For example, the smart Letter of Credit (i.e. replacing the traditional Letter of Credit with smart contracts on a shared secure platform) or the digital inventory management solutions, which
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Source: Corporate Treasury Insights 2016 – BCG & BNP Paribas
“Treasurers like the specialized value propositions and the often-cheaper price
points that FinTechs provide, but 90% of the respondents of the survey indicated
that FinTechs are not yet capable of meeting the full array of corporate
treasury needs.”
“ Digitisation has the capacity to transform how Trade Services are delivered by strengthening the links between the market participants.”
enable corporates to have real time visibility of their supply chain.
It is however difficult to know if or when these projects will be fully implemented. Their future success depends on digital deployment, legal acknowledgment, and adoption by the market.
Currently, the necessary legislation has not been adapted to digital Trade solutions, therefore preventing imminent adoption. Digitisation is a change driver, with banks also having a central role to play thanks to their representative roles with such industry bodies as ICC or BAFT.
3 LEVERAGING ON CO-DEVELOPMENT
Digitisation has the capacity to transform how Trade Services are delivered by strengthening the links between the market participants.
Increasingly, the relevant players involved in Trade – corporates, banks, SWIFT, the regulators, FinTechs and so on – are coming together at cross-industry events and forums to share experiences and ideas on how to overcome digital challenges. In June, the ‘FinTechs Trade Finance Briefing Day’ in Geneva and the ‘Blockchain Conference & Masterclass’ held in London were both successful, and in so doing confirmed the importance of co-development. The clear message from corporate clients was that they rely strongly on banks to drive the digital transformation in Trade and to offer adequate and efficient solutions.
Building on this, in May 2016, the Boston Consulting Group and BNP Paribas published the Corporate Treasury Insights survey, which reflected Treasurers and CFO’s expectations. One major outcome was “Corporate treasurers increasingly expect a comprehensive, streamlined digital customer experience from their transaction banking partners”.
At BNP Paribas, we believe that innovation is critical and that it is essential for us to work closely with corporates so that we maintain our deep understanding of their expectations and needs for the future. By including corporate clients in our digital and Blockchain Trade initiatives, we are proactively involving them in co-designing the Trade solutions of tomorrow.
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Living the Change#8 SEPTEMBER 2016
THE FUTURE IS IN YOUR CARDS
Marco Marchi, Cash Management Sales Executive, examines the evolution of the payment cards environment, focusing on how Treasurers can improve internal efficiency.
TODAY…Card payments are growing exponentially, with the number of payments per person increasing in every EU country. Concurrently, the fragmented payment landscape in Europe is evolving, gradually moving from isolated markets to a more global and integrated ecosystem aligned to customer behaviour and new regulation, such as the SEPA Card Framework.
What does this mean for treasurers?
Retailers that have subsidiaries in several European countries face the challenge of building effective global card acquiring models in a cost-efficient way. The lack of systems standardisation and harmonisation of tariff conditions in Europe present hurdles to retailers who are seeking to implement efficient and secure card payment services across the entire value chain (i.e. banks, card schemes, processors). Additionally, when
MARCO MARCHI
Marco Marchi is Cash Management Sales Executive for BNP Paribas Corporate Trade and Treasury Solutions in Switzerland. He has been with BNP Paribas since 2007 covering various transaction banking sales roles.
expanding to new markets, understanding local consumer habits is as important as systems integration.
Reading the “cards”: looking into the future
In a highly competitive environment, a cost effective solution with a standardised technical infrastructure and harmonised tariffs will benefit both the merchant and the end user experience.
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By way of example, La Maison Chopard, the esteemed watchmaker and jeweller, has been a pioneer in this respect. It has understood the benefits of implementing a solid, core payments platform, which at the same time retains the necessary flexibility to adjust to consumer behaviour.
Initially, Chopard built card acquiring services with local banks all over the world; this created a catalogue of material and tariff conditions and prevented a global overview of the process. However, the appreciation of the Swiss franc in 2015 provided Chopard the opportunity to review its hedging and collection policy; consequently, the card acquiring business was identified as a major improvement opportunity.
Working with BNP Paribas, the new card acquiring and cash management solution established by Chopard is both innovative and evolutionary.
From a technical point of view, the pan-European card acquiring solution enables the company to make significant time savings by processing all Visa and MasterCard transactions through the same technical protocol, reducing the need for additional technical developments.
From a cost saving perspective, the platform enables Chopard to bill its clients in their own currency, thereby avoiding foreign exchange commissions.
Additionally, a centralised acquiring platform allows retailers to sign a unique acquiring contract across Europe, which offers end-to-end payments in multiple currencies. Retailers therefore avoid FX costs; benefit from streamlined and robust processes via a single technical protocol and format; and have access to an improved, centralised reporting for easy reconciliation.
“ (...) a centralised acquiring platform allows retailers to sign a unique acquiring contract across Europe (...)”
KEY BENEFITS
Improved visibility
Cost savings
Standardised processes
Enhancedreporting
Centralisation
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Living the Change#8 SEPTEMBER 2016
Chopard & Cie SA Highly Commended Winner Best Card Solution in partnership with BNP ParibasTreasury Today Adam Smith Awards © July 2016
OLIVIER DANIÈRE, CHOPARD AND MARCO MARCHI, BNP PARIBAS
BEYOND CARDS Established banks have been making efforts to adapt to the changing payments landscape by putting in place many initiatives to benefit consumers. Their action is in response to the emergence of FinTechs, mobile payments, mobile commerce, contactless payments and e-wallets – all of which are potential game changers that are disrupting the rules and business practices of the complex payment value chain.
Banks are responding to these new sources of digital innovation by increasing partnerships with third parties. Card acquiring, and – more broadly – the way funds are exchanged will be an integral part of the accelerating digital transformation. Nascent, but rapidly proliferating technologies such as blockchain with public (or private) ledgers, promise to accelerate transactions by eliminating the need for intermediaries, cutting costs and lowering the risk of fraud, which will ultimately benefit customers.
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CENTRAL BANKS STILL DOMINANT
William De Vijlder draws a picture of today’s economic landscape and analyses the possible implications for the long run.
WILLIAM DE VIJLDER
William De Vijlder is Group Chief Economist of BNP Paribas. Before this he was Vice-Chairman of BNP Paribas Investment Partners. He has a PhD in Economics from Ghent University, Belgium, where he has been teaching since 1991.
Economic uncertainty hasn’t declined in recent months, quite on the contrary. The consequences of Brexit, the upcoming referendum in Italy on constitutional reform, US elections, the ongoing slowdown in Chinese growth despite the important efforts to boost activity, etc. Yet corporate and emerging market bond yields have declined significantly in recent months, sovereign spreads in the Eurozone have narrowed and US equity markets have made new highs. To a large extent this is linked to the actions and credibility of central banks. The forceful reaction of the Bank of England to the prospect of a Brexit-related worsening of the real economy gave a boost to market sentiment. The ongoing QE by the Bank of Japan and the ECB have influenced global liquidity conditions and hence investor behaviour even though the former had disappointed at its most recent meeting by not going beyond buying more ETFs whereas the latter has tried to calm down market speculation of imminent new action. In both cases, this makes the September meetings even more important. The yen is flirting with the
100 level against the dollar and we can expect that the BoJ will not want to see it going lower because of the impact on the stock market and the inflation outlook. The ECB is widely expected by the market to do more considering the very subdued underlying inflation dynamics, but what exactly is not clear nor is the timing. At a minimum one would expect an extension of the QE programme beyond March 2017 but in addition some of the constraints it is facing
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Living the Change#8 SEPTEMBER 2016
will have to be eased so as to be in a position to implement the QE extension. Here again, the exchange rate looks like the key instrument which will reflect shifts in sentiment on what the ECB can or is likely to do.
Of course, the exchange rate is a relative price of two currencies, so the Federal Reserve stance will also be a driver, not to say the most important one. Indeed, the second semester shapes up better on the growth front than the disappointing first half of the year and the pace of job creations has been well above what it needed to stabilise the unemployment rate, which is already very low. Unsurprisingly, the tone has become more hawkish and the debate amongst economists has shifted from the possibility of a new hike to the timing of such a move: September or December? Yet, the fixed income markets are not fully pricing in a move between now and year-end. It is tempting to label this as complacency, but it can also reflect international influences. Global spillovers of domestic monetary policy are a well-known phenomenon and since the global financial crisis, there have been many
analyses showing the impact of Federal Reserve policy on the interest rates and exchange rates of other countries. What seems to be rather new is that it also goes in the other direction. When bond yields are negative in an increasing number of countries and for ever longer maturities, US yields end up looking pretty attractive even though in the absolute they are also low. In a way this weighs on the influence of the Fed on the long end of the yield curve. Another factor which contributes to keeping US bond yields low is the Fed’s credibility: investors are convinced that it will not rock the boat and hence will be very cautious in hiking rates. The growing emphasis of Fed officials on the neutral rate of interest being very low goes in the same direction. The neutral rate is the rate which neither stimulates nor slows down the economy. A low neutral rate implies that the cumulative tightening in this cycle should be limited and hence should not cause any disruption to speak of in the real economy. This would imply that the prospect of a Fed tightening later this year becomes less of an issue.
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MANY JOURNEYS TO TREASURY
Journeys To Treasury is a brand new thought initiative that builds on an open dialogue between four industry players to provide corporates with experts insights on key topics and potential game changers.
Earlier this year, BNP Paribas, SAP, PwC and the European Association of Corporate Treasurers (EACT) decided to jointly work towards a thought initiative whose aim is to help finance professionals resolve some of the intricate puzzles that constitute the treasury of today and tomorrow. The result of this unprecedented collaboration is a multi-faceted report called ‘Journeys To Treasury’. It goes to the heart of some of the most important topics confronting treasurers and finance professionals today and tomorrow.
A JOURNEYS TO TREASURY ROADMAPThrough the noise and confusion that often seems to be the trademark of the modern world of finance, a number of crucial questions emerge from all sections of the financial community. What is worth paying attention to? Which technologies
are going to impact on my decisions? What trends and initiatives will be truly transformative? Of the many initiatives underway, which will be key to my journey?
JEAN-FRANÇOIS DENIS
Jean-François Denis is deputy global head of cash management at BNP Paribas, in charge of payments and collections, strategic marketing, client advisory and communication. He is a graduate in civil engineering from the Université Catholique de Louvain.
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Living the Change#8 SEPTEMBER 2016
“ I hope the reader will find depth in the report. That is the reason why we have chosen not to make a catalogue of all the possible themes to be tackled but rather to focus on the most important topics.”
BUILDING ON CONVERSATIONSOur approach is simple: a conversation between the financial services industry, the systems provider, the consultant and the association of professionals. In Journeys To Treasury, each of the four contributors offers their own expertise gained from their own journeys in this bumpy – yet encouraging - landscape, structured in 3 sections: Continued Innovation / Anytime, Anywhere Treasury / Cybercrime and Fraud.
While basing itself upon the understanding and knowledge of today’s treasury challenges as well as the ability to anticipate the impact of transforming trends, Journeys To Treasury discusses advanced technological solutions and industry initiatives in the making.
CONTINUED INNOVATIONNew entrants and emerging technologies are having a noticeably disruptive impact on the financial sector, with a knock-on effect on the world of corporate treasury. The report addresses their disruptive potential, while assessing corporate treasury’s appetite for innovation that requires a renewed collaborative approach integrating Fintechs.
ANYTIME, ANYWHERE TREASURYThere is a natural and evolving trend towards going mobile and 24/7 banking and, among other things, this will inevitably mean faster payments. Journeys To Treasury delves deep in the concepts of “Anytime, Anywhere Treasury” and discusses the pros and cons of treasuries riding the wave of the ever-increasing fast pace of commerce.
CYBERCRIME AND FRAUDAs cyberattacks become increasingly common, companies are becoming aware of the fact that it is not if they will be attacked, but when, just as instant and mobile payments increase the susceptibility of the industry to cybercrime and fraud. No area of business can afford to be complacent regarding corporate fraud and hacking. This is especially true for corporate treasuries.
PRESENT AND FUTUREJourneys To Treasury offers a pragmatic vision of the present and future of treasury, as seen through the prism of these evolving issues. It is a reference, a roadmap, for corporate treasurers wanting to make their own journey to treasury in this rapidly-changing landscape.
The report will be released during the annual EuroFinance event in Vienna on October 13th and will be available for download at www.journeystotreasury.com
Jean-François Denis
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EVENTS CALENDARFIND US AT THESE GLOBAL CONFERENCES FOR TREASURERS
SIBOS 2016 SWITZERLAND, GENEVA 26/29 SEPTEMBER
ACT TREASURY FORUM 2016UK, LONDON 9 NOVEMBER
GTR AFRICA TRADE & INFRASTRUCTURE FINANCE CONFERENCE 2016 UK, LONDON 5/6 OCTOBER
EUROFINANCE EUROPE 2016AUSTRIA, VIENNA 12/14 OCTOBER
GTR NORDIC REGION TRADE & EXPORT FINANCE CONFERENCE 2016SWEDEN, STOCKHOLM 29/30 NOVEMBER
USEFUL LINKS
• FOCUS ONLINE: focusmagazine.bnpparibas
• cib.bnpparibas
• share-coach.com
• cashmanagement.bnpparibas.com
• w-devijlder-ecoblog.bnpparibas.com
• www.journeystotreasury.com
Annual event organised by SWIFT – « the premier business forum for the global finance community to debate and collaborate in the areas of payments, securities, cash management and trade ». • sibos.com
Association of Corporate Treasurers event for finance professionals. Dedicated to senior corporate treasurers, this edition will cover the impacts of political risk and technological evolution.• treasurers.org/treasuryforum
Organized by Global Trade Review, the event will gather high-level participants from the Trade Finance community and will consist in analytical conversations coupled with practical case-studies as well as brainstorming sessions.• gtreview.com/events
The International Treasury & Cash Management conference is the world’s leading international treasury event. Gathering 2000 senior level delegates from all continents, it is a unique expertise and networking place.• eurofinance.com
Organized by Global Trade Review, the event is unique in the Nordics. It gathers high level representatives from domestic, regional and international institutions and provides unrivalled networking opportunities. • gtreview.com/events
This communication is for professional clients only. The value of your investments can go down as well as up, so you could get back less than you invested. This advertisement has been approved and issued by BNP Paribas. BNP Paribas, incorporated in France with limited liability (Registered Office: 16 boulevard des Italiens, 75009 Paris, France, 662 042 449 RCS Paris, www.bnpparibas.com), is authorised and lead supervised by the European Central Bank and the Autorité de Contrôle Prudentiel et de Résolution and authorised by the Prudential Regulation Authority. BNP Paribas is subject to limited regulation by the Financial Conduct Authority and Prudential Regulation Authority. Details about the extent of our authorisation and regulation by the Prudential Regulation Authority, and regulation by the Financial Conduct Authority are available from us on request.
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