Market Scan

US Banker Reports on E-Payments

The September issue of US Banker on E-Payments

In "Banks Can Cure Docs' Payment Plans," John Adams writes about the opportunity for banks in medical remittance processing.  Mr. Adams cites industry studies showing that it can cost up to $33 for a health-care provider to post a payment and that health-care payments account for 3.4 billion out of 9.3 billion business-to-business payments. 

In "Technology Can Drive Out Payment Chain Inefficiencies," Lee Conrad identifies JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup, Wells Fargo, US Bank, HSBC, and ABN Amro as leaders in Supply Chain Finance. 

In "U.S. Targeted by RBC in E-Payments Business," John Adams describes RBC's new payment service which lets foreign customers of American companies make card payments using their local currency and card type.

Headlines: U.S. Payments

New MasterCard Payment Gateway Breaks Down Payment Silos by Integrating and Automating B2B Payment Processing;

SAP Launches Corporate-to-Bank Connectivity Service Offering for Banks

Headlines: International Trade and Payments

SEPA, More Than Just a Compliance Issue for Banks

Headlines: International Trade and Payments

Algorithmic Trading and Technology Sharping the Future of The Foreing Exchange Market

JPMorgan Treasury Services Announces Launch of Enriched Euro Payment Services to Coincide with its Target2 Readiness

Lloyds TSB Bank to Outsource Trade Back-Office Processing to Wachovia Bank

SWIFT announces new fixed fee pricing option for high volume customers

Wachovia Launches Advanced Internet-Based Financial Supply Chain Management Platform

Voices in Business Interview with interview with Robert Heisterborg, Global Head of Payments & Cash Management, ING.

Headlines: Medical Banking

Health Net and Bank of America Launch Partnership

Wells Fargo Announces Mobile Banking for Businesses

Wells Fargo announced that it will offer mobile banking to small business customers:

"Once enrolled in the Wells Fargo Mobile service, small business customers can check balances of their small business and personal deposit and credit accounts, view transaction history, and transfer money between eligible Wells Fargo accounts on any Web-enabled mobile device by accessing the mobile banking URL wf.com."

The press release goes on to state that Wells Fargo has offered mobile banking to its commercial customer since May through its CEO Mobile service.  A prior press release states:

"CEO Mobile delivers key treasury reports to business executives through a secure browser session. Later this year, Wells Fargo plans to add functionality for wire approvals; positive pay, to authenticate checks issued against a business's account; and administrative tasks, such as password resets."

For the most recent press release, click here.

Deutsche Bank Announces SEPA Strategy to offer "Financial Benefits"

Deutsche Bank announced that its SEPA (Single European Payment Area) strategy will offer financial benefits to corporations.  More accurately, Deutsche Bank has identified four mitigation strategies to lessen the inconvience to corporate customers:

• Treat SEPA payments like legacy domestic mass payments
• Insulate clients in their migration to SEPA through the enhancement of internationally popular payment formats such as IDOC, CSV and EDIFACT
• Use existing accounts for SEPA payments
• Add product features to ease the transition

In combination, these mitigation strategies will allow customers to continue using the same accounts, data formats, and communication protocols to communicate payment instructions.

Greenwich Associates Awards Excellence in Business Banking

Greenwich Associates has recognized several banks for excellence in customer satisfaction.  Greenwich states that the awards are based on "more than 25,000 business banking firms with sales of $1 to $10 million in 70 markets across the U.S."  It is unclear what the evaluation criteria included.  In any event, here are the winners for the Cash Management Services category.

National winners were Bank of the West, BB&T, Colonial Bank, Comerica, First Citizens Bank (NC), First National Bank, Huntington National Bank, Peoples Bank (CT), Regions Bank, SunTrust Bank, Synovus Financial Corp., Union Bank of California, Wachovia, and Zions Bank.

For a look at regional winners, click here.

Commentary

Most of the majors - Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase, Wells Fargo, and US Bank - are notably missing from the awards list, which is dominated by regionals and super-community banks.  The customer service advantage enjoyed by smaller institutions enables them to compete for cash management business against competitors with lager staffs, better collection networks and consistent early-to-market advantage.

BTN Reports on Health Care Payments

The August issue of Bank Technology News (BTN) reports on B2B health care payments, including services from PNC and Fifth Third.  BTN cites Celent, a leading research and advisory firm:

"Celent says financial institutions are well-positioned to the healthcare payments market, since clearinghouses, their chief competitors, can be inefficient. The research firm reports it is not uncommon for clearinghouses to experience 10 to 20 percent error rates in claims handling in contract to financial institutions payment handling error rates, which usually fall below a tenth of a percent. Additionally, the number of payer-provider transactions is huge. In 2006, there were about 3.4 billion claims which equate to 3.4 billion payments, about a third of the b2b market's 9.3 billion payments."

For the complete article, click here.

How will SEPA and the PSD Impact Corporates?

The Payments Podcast series (produced by Voices in Business and sponsored by Sun Microsystems) continues its look at the Single European Payments Area (SEPA) and the Payments Services Directive (PSD) with Dhiru Tanna, SVP Business Integration with Bank of America's Corporate Payments Group.  Mr. Tanna addresses the question, "how will SEPA and the PSD Impact Corporates?"  To view the podcast, click here.