Global manufacturer NSG improves cash visibility and connects to SWIFT
Wednesday, 23rd December 2020Guest blog by AccessPay
When it comes to improving payment processes in the corporate world, many decide to use the SWIFT network.
The need for a centralised access point is key as well as advanced cyber security to allow fast, safe transactions to take place across the globe.
This is something Christopher Davies, Treasury Risk and Reporting Manager at NSG Group knows all about, having spent four years on a project to find the best way forward.
Thankfully, after investing in a partnership with Manchester firm AccessPay the global manufacturing group has found the perfect solution.
What was the business challenge?
Around five years ago NSG had a cash visibility problem that needed to be solved.
The world-leading glass and glazing manufacturer needed to streamline their payment operations.
With a creaking ‘de-centralised structure’ it was time for change and a project was launched. Their aims were to increase cash visibility, become bank agnostic and allow for more agile banking.
After extensive market research, the team decided that they needed a cloud-based solution and chose SWIFT, a leading provider of secure financial messaging services.
Rather than a slow and costly DIY approach they decided to go through a SWIFT vendor.
Their wise investment led them to global fintech provider AccessPay.
A SWIFT solution
The collaboration led to a new system for NSG Group improving productivity and security.
An enthused Christopher said: “We have successfully connected our treasury management system, City Financials by ION Group to the SWIFT network via AccessPay.
“We have also created a payment factory and we have many subsidiaries using the system from several countries.”
How does it work and why is it useful?
AccessPay act as a file-agnostic platform that automatically transforms messages to the correct format on behalf of the corporate client. The product is known as ‘SWIFT alliance Lite 2’.
This means that varying file formats and manual uploads are no longer a problem.
As Christopher explains: “We wanted to move away from online banking platforms as they are not very efficient due to the various file formats for uploads.
“They are also quite unsecure in terms of storage of files and there’s significant time invested in systems administration and, further down the line, audit requirements.”
How could this benefit your business?
As well as cutting down manual time spent on payment tasks, connecting to the SWIFT network also provided scalability and security to NSG.
The potential to roll–out a solution was key for the firm who listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange and has principal operations in 30 countries worldwide.
“Scalability was really important for us – we knew we wanted it to be a global cash management solution.
“The ability to scale connectivity to multiple banks and multiple jurisdictions using multiple payment methods all through a single standard connectivity process was a real benefit to us.”
What’s it like to use?
In short, very user-friendly and adaptable.
“It’s really easily managed through AccessPay” says Christopher.
“The file transfer process is only really a matter of adding the folders to our batch jobs that move the files between our system and AccessPay, so there’s not a significant amount of work.”
The security focus was another major plus for the manufacturer, as they upgraded from using unsecure network drives to store files and folders.
“Now everything is double encrypted and passed via a secure pathway to a file transfer protocol folder.
“It’s really secure and that is a big advantage to the group as it reduced the opportunity for fraud and any operational error in inputting files correctly.”
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Speaking of the project Jack Clancy, head of professional services at AccessPay said: “NSG is a great company to work with and we are delighted that our platform has improved their finance function.
“AccessPay gives you the ability to connect to the SWIFT network, which in turn, allows access to potentially 10,000 banks around the globe.”
Original post – Global manufacturer NSG improves cash visibility and connects to SWIFT – AccessPay