This is the second episode of the Thriving Treasury Podcast series, brought to you by Treasury Today and HSBC. In this podcast we look at new and innovative ways of using virtual accounts. We speak to Matthew Wagstaff, Global Product Manager Virtual Accounts, Global Liquidity & Cash Management at HSBC to find out about the ways they are being deployed by corporates today. Matthew is an expert on virtual accounts, leading HSBC’s innovation in this space, and helping many clients implement solutions.
Listen as Matthew describes how corporates can use virtual accounts to rationalise the number of physical accounts they manage and gain increased visibility over the underlying transactions passing through these accounts.
Matthew explains that although virtual accounts aren’t new, having been in the industry for some years, they have typically only been used to identify payers. “Where we are taking virtual accounts now, is to give them more functionality so that they look and feel more like a real bank account, so you can do not only collections, but payments also.”
Virtual accounts are here to stay. They won’t replace existing cash management techniques, such as cash concentration or notional pooling, but can be seen as another tool in the cash management arsenal. Over the coming years, says Matthew, “I think that we will see more and more corporates adopt a virtual account solution within their cash management structure”.
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