PAYMENTS: INFRASTRUCTURE
Predicting the
unpredictable Ad van der Poel, Co-head of Product Management at Bank of America’s Global Transaction Service for EMEA, believes ‘digitising the trade’, not just the payment, is key to business survival in a future that’s increasingly hard to call Latin scholar or not, every company boss and treasurer surely knows the mantra scientia potentia est. In the digital age, knowledge is most definitely power. Having forensically accurate financial forecasts, including the key drivers of income and expenditure, are the bedrock for forging strategies for success. And the need for that has never been greater as the COVID-19 pandemic continues to wreak havoc on economies across the globe.
Latest statistics show how easily future-looking business plans can be rendered completely useless. Manufacturing in some sectors has plummeted. The retail and hospitality sectors are also reeling, with many high street chains looking at various ways of refinancing their debt mountains as layoffs mount. And it’s not just the major players that have been caught out by COVID. In the US, there are suggestions that at least 100,000 small businesses could be lost for good as the economy shrinks. Bank of America, like many banks, is seeing the impact of the pandemic on
clients and recognises the urgent need among corporates to get faster access to working capital, which is linked to the speed with which transactions are settled, better strategic decision-making and improved forecasting that can be achieved by leveraging the information around those payment journeys. Could better transaction data save those small businesses in the US? Maybe not, but it might give some a fighting chance – or at least a clue as to whether there is a future worth fighting for – by giving treasurers the granular insight needed to model a variety of forecasts more accurately.
Next moves: Accurate financial forecasting is critical to operational decision-making – and data can deliver it
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TheFintechMagazine | Issue 17
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