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The challenge

As the payments landscape continues to evolve rapidly, Globe had been looking to enhance its cash management function, with a keen eye on digitisation and embracing real-time treasury.

When COVID-19 hit, this goal became more urgent. The pandemic disrupted global supply chains, impacting Globe’s suppliers and vendors. There was a pressing need for Globe to digitise its banking set-up to provide more efficient treasury and disbursement services to their vendors and suppliers.

The key pain points Globe looked to resolve were:

• No standardised approach of tracking cross-border payments, and lack of access to account balances and transaction details in real-time.
• Highly manual process for updates on payments.
• Lack of visibility into end-to-end process for cross-border payments and dependency on banks to provide a prior-day account statement once a day for visibility of their account balances, outgoing and incoming transactions.
• Lack of transparency and certainty over whether payments have been debited or credited, impacting the ability for vendors and suppliers to forecast liquidity, and working capital.
• Potential disputes over FX and bank fees due to the lack of clarity on deductions.
• Inefficient delivery processes as the delivery of goods and services typically happen only after payments are received.

Globe was not only looking for a complete solution but one that would require minimal resource investment.

The solution

In June 2020, Globe successfully achieved its ambitions of real-time treasury when it implemented J.P. Morgan’s first-to-market real-time treasury (RTT) plug-and-play application powered by application programming interface (API) technology. This comprehensive solution also incorporates SWIFT’s Global Payment Innovation (GPI) service – a market-leading standardised and automated messaging service that tracks cross-border payments for corporates.

By integrating the RTT app into Globe’s existing ERP system, the firm now has instant access to real-time balances and transaction details of their accounts at a touch of a button. Combined with SWIFT GPI service, Globe can trace the entire journey of a cross-border payment.

The RTT plug-and-play solution is live for Globe’s suppliers and vendors globally, enabling them to receive and make payments to anywhere around the world.

Best practice and innovation

The RTT app is the first in the world that empowers corporates to transition to real-time treasury with minimal resources required. The plug-and-play capability is exactly that – once the app is integrated in the ERP system, the function is ‘switched on’ with zero IT investment or resourcing needed. This has helped to accelerate the implementation timeline, replacing what would typically be a six-month IT project with a simple-to-execute solution that was implemented in just two weeks.

The easy, yet powerful solution has completely transformed Globe’s treasury systems.

The API data being collected is being applied with J.P. Morgan’s exclusive algorithm technology that can detect unusual transactional activities and errors, alerting Globe to anomalies in payment behaviours and providing insights on payment patterns it has never had access to before.

Key benefits

• Instant control and visibility over account balances and payments.
• Reduced error rates and working hours.
• Improved working capital.
• Improved exception handling and enhanced security.
• Enhanced supplier experience.
• Reduced disputes between Globe and
• suppliers/vendors.

“We’re proud to be the first company in the Philippines to pioneer real-time treasury services. Globe relies heavily on our vendor partners and suppliers to ensure that our own operations run smoothly, and the pandemic has further exacerbated their need to forecast liquidity and better manage working capital. The integration of J.P. Morgan’s RTT solution into our ERP system has enabled us to do treasury operations more efficiently as we no longer have to rely on our banking partners to provide a daily statement for visibility over our transactions. The solution allows us to track payments easily and most importantly, almost instantly, without having to manually enter the payment references or call the banks directly,” says Globe’s Director for Treasury, Ma. Fatima Cinco.