The ideal treasury e-banking tool would allow you to configure every parameter, function and window and to create a dashboard that reflected exactly the way you need to work. Sogecash Web, the new multi country web product from Societe Generale does all this, allowing treasurers to manage accounts efficiently, initiate payment orders and optimise global cash through one, tailored internet solution.

Solving cross-border problems

Global treasury requires a business presence in several countries, maintaining accounts with several banks both local and international in each and using a variety of channels for routing cash and information. In this situation, the ideal is a single forwarding bank through which to manage all the accounts and channels, regardless of where they are.

“Sogecash Web particularly fits companies having several banks at both domestic and international levels,” says Corinne Babok, Corporate Cash Management Senior Product Manager, at Societe Generale. “Any company having cross-border interests, even if its accounts are located in different banks, can benefit from this product. It has applications for small entities as well as large corporate groups. The key requirement is not the size, but the cross-border banking activity.”

Key benefits of Sogecash Web

Sogecash Web is designed to provide genuine decision-making support for corporate treasurers, allowing them to manage accounts efficiently and optimise their cash on a day-to-day basis. It offers a single access point to a wide range of services available for accounts held with Societe Generale or with other banks, anywhere in the world. “As any internet tool, Sogecash Web is easy to access, available at any time and from anywhere” says Babok.

The benefit also includes:

• Single and multilingual point of access.
• Wide range of reporting and transactional functionalities.
• Modular system customisable to individual needs.
• High degree of security, coupled with a high degree of flexibility to match any company organisation regarding signature management.

‘A la carte’ services

The system provides a wide range of services in two modes: upload/download and transactional. The key innovation is that each client can select only what he needs and create his own version of Sogecash Web by selecting from a palette including:

• View bank account statements and intraday reports.
• Initiate orders globally.
• Or if preferred, access Societe Generale’s local cash management capabilities in different countries.
• Receive selected alerts.

“Though account monitoring can very easily be made on a global basis with the tool, it is also important to be able to have direct access to specific local specificities, and this is precisely what Sogecash Web provides. Indeed, accessing the Internet environment of our branches through the Sogecash Web portal opens up direct access to domestic payments and collections in the relevant domestic formats when needed. This allows the user to have both global and local view and transaction issuing in a way that suits either a decentralised or a highly centralised organisation equally,” says Babok.

Advanced customisation

Each treasurer is unique and has his/her own way of working. What must appear first is not necessarily the same for all users. So Sogecash Web is designed to allow treasurers to create their own uniquely personalised workspace.

The Dashboard is the key vehicle for customisation. Here content is fully customisable as is the presentation. The user can choose to display different modules and functions in any way he or she wants and all the customisation is via drag and drop, very easy to handle.

“We simply let our users decide which services within the tool they wish to use and display on the screen only their selection,” Babok explains.

In addition to the core treasury and banking modules, Sogecash Web, through the dashboard, enables the user to view information on stock markets and, through RSS feeds, to access a selection of financial papers if they so wish.

Flexible user rights

A key feature of the system is that each user can have a fully independent profile. The management of user rights is completely flexible in order to make Sogecash Web consistent with each client’s internal rules and organisation.

Says Babok, “the way users’ rights can be managed must be both very rich and highly flexible. Sogecash Web allows users to tailor access, input and signature rights, in different ways, at individual or group level, so that it can be adapted to suit a very large range of organisational structures.”

State-of-the-art security

Confidentiality and security are crucial elements of any electronic banking tool. First of all, the site benefits from the high security of the https protocol. In addition, access can be granted through X509 certificate authentication, which is at present the strongest security standard when stored on a physical device (USB dongle or smartcard) and this is the case in Sogecash Web. Sogecash Web will also integrate the new SWIFT 3SKey solution, removing corporates’ need for different security devices from one bank to another.

All-in-one solution

Sogecash Web is an all-in-one solution. As Babok points out: “Our clients need more from such products than just cash management functions, they also need easy access to the other services they use often, such as FX and trade services.” Sogecash Web provides for such links.

Simple migration

For customers currently using the former product Sogecash Net International, access to the new one will be very easy. They will simply have to log on to the new address and will be able to use all of the new capabilities. All existing user rights will be automatically transferred into the new system so that users will have no action to take to go on using their services the way they previously did.

SWIFT 3SKey compatible

Sogecash Web is designed to be fully compatible with 3SKey. This is a service offered by SWIFT to banks and their corporate customers. The solution can be used to authenticate corporate customers on banks’ websites. It also enables corporates to genuinely digitally sign the files sent to their banks with the banks then able to check the level of authorisation granted to the signatories.

With the 3SKey solution, the same certificate can be used with multiple banks, so that the user needs only one device.

Says Babok: “Corporate clients often use cash management products and services from different banks and different countries and the security devices are all different. Even within the same bank several devices may be needed depending on the service type. 3SKey is an opportunity to simplify this process to a single security device. Treasurers want just one device – a multi-bank multiproduct solution.”

To make the most out of the 3SKey solution, Societe Generale also allows the use of 3SKey in a wide range of products and services such as SWIFTNet FileAct and EBICS in France.

Sogecash Web: completing our range of cash management solutions

Eric Flour, Head of Marketing and Products, Corporate Cash Management Department, Societe Generale outlines the bank’s product line and aims.

Our ambition is clearly to provide best of breed international cash management solutions to our customers, adapted to their needs and to their organisation. In this context, we have developed offerings and products recognised by the market such as SWIFTNet capabilities and treasury centralisation tools.

With 200 corporate customers expected by the end of 2011, we are, with our SWIFTNet offer, one of the top five international banks. We aim to keep this rank by integrating new functions and value-added services. Just one example: the launch at the end of 2010 of the 3Skey certificates for the signature of files under SWIFTNet FileAct.

In the field of the treasury centralisation, we have created a range of products allowing us to meet the needs of ZBA/TGA for accounts held with the Societe Generale network and with other banks.

It is in the same spirit that we have renewed and enriched our international cash management product on the internet. The launch of Sogecash Web allows us to offer a global portal gathering the Societe Generale group products from cash to FX and even trade, while bringing a customisation adapted to the needs of each of our customers. In a sense ‘a global personal portal’…

SG NetBanking, Societe Generale’s domestic e-banking product in Poland

“SG NetBanking is a domestic electronic banking tool adapted to the specific requirements of the Polish corporates and is fully compliant with Polish regulations”, says Frédéric Sem, Head of Corporate Cash Management at Societe Generale Warsaw. “It has been developed by the Societe Generale Warsaw IT team on the basis of our clients’ requests. It’s a constantly evolving product which is permanently enriched with new functionalities aiming at answering Societe Generale Warsaw clients’ expectations. It is a generic tool intended to satisfy any type of clients.”

SG NetBanking is a fully secured internet based tool. It provides on-line access to intra-day and end of day information and allows the clients to issue direct debits and all kind of payment orders, including specific local ones such as payments to the Tax Office or Social Security. Payment orders can be prepared and imported in local formats (ELIXIR-0) and any format chosen by the client.

In addition to the ‘classical’ cash management services, SG NetBanking aims at giving the Societe Generale Warsaw clients an easy access to all the commercial banking products offered by the branch.

As a conclusion, Frédéric Sem adds, “Our clients have been at the same time the requestor and the architect of our product and SG NetBanking should be rightfully considered as ‘a son of the Polish soil’”.

Robert Le Bourgeois, Global Head of Sales, Cash Management, Societe Generale: “The launch of Sogecash Web will pave the way for a new relationship with our customers”.

Much more user-friendly and closer to the treasurers’ needs, our web based electronic banking tool will allow them to monitor their accounts, streamline their liquidity and optimise their treasury in the most innovative way a global bank can offer today.

This objective has been achieved thanks to the close cooperation between our sales team and our product managers in order to meet most of the requirements of our international clients – some of who were even deeply involved in the proof-of-concept process.

That’s the reason why we were able to design Sogecash Web as the global and modular answer we dreamt about: you can make it your complete cash management tool or use it as a complementary tool in conjunction with other EB services. Sogecash Web will provide you with a wide range of reliable banking services ‘à la carte’, you subscribe… and you only pay for the services needed!

And as required by many international treasurers, you will benefit from the domestic features of cash management practices in a particular country. Just ask our cash management consultants how comfortable they now feel with the new brand Sogecash Web!