Despite industry buzz about faster payments, corporate treasuries and commercial bankers rate obtaining detailed information on transaction flows as more important than speed when it comes to electronic payments, according to research from TD Bank
For inbound payments, 52% of corporate treasurers viewed the ability to post more information as more imperative to operations than the speed of settlement, while 36% ranked faster settlement as more important.
The results, which reflect the views of 336 treasury professionals and bankers from around the globe, will be sweet music to correspondent banking network Swift, which is majoring on enriched data as part of its gpi project as it battles with Ripple for corporate hearts and minds.
Tom Gregory, manager of treasury management sales, TD Bank says: "Rich data attached to payment files make the jobs of both bankers and corporate professionals easier, so it is not surprising that so many respondents view this as vital to running more efficient operations."
On the technological arms race, the availability of APIs for outbound payments outstrips corporate demand for blockchcain-based innovations by a wide margin, with four times as many corporate treasurers calling for more investment by banks at the interface rather than the DLT value chain.
The data also exposes a wide mobile divide, as corporates and banks fail to see eye-to-eye over the value of commercial mobile banking applications. For banks, 76% of respondents believe mobile banking capabilities would be a significant development for their clients over the next three years, yet just 24% of corporates rated mobile apps as high. What's more, 19% of commercial financial professionals stated mobile apps are unimportant to their work.
As ever, improvement in cyber security protection remain top-of-mind, with 74% of corporates and 92% of banks ranking cyber fraud as one of their top concerns this year.
Yet despite these concerns, companies seem unprepared to prevent incidents. Just 26% of businesses require employees involved in payments to take security training with a testing component, compared with 90% of banks.