Cash and Liquidity Management

SmartStream’s cash and liquidity management solution assists financial institutions to consolidate siloed infrastructures, capturing transactions from any internal or external source to create a single, global view of balances across all currencies and accounts.

In addition, by using SmartStream’s intraday liquidity stress testing module, institutions can run comprehensive stress scenarios in minutes.

This ensures a high degree of accuracy, facilitating informed decision-making and allowing intraday liquidity reporting requirements to be met more effectively. The solution also helps banks to comply with the BCBS 248 intraday liquidity management framework implemented by various regulators across the globe.

TLM Cash & Liquidity Management captures transactions from any internal or external source to create a single, global view of balances across all currencies and accounts.
It enables users to see real-time positions based on opening balances and settlements confirmations, as well as forecasted positions generated from opening balances and projected cash flows. Balances can be studied from a variety of perspectives, e.g. currency, legal entity, account, book, product line, product. Manually capturing cash positions from multiple sources is time-consuming and prevents prompt discovery of errors.

TLM Cash & Liquidity Management automatically reconciles actual and projected messages, confirming and identifying failed and unexpected cash items. This delivered from
‘Once a Day’ to ‘real-time’ reporting. TLM Cash & Liquidity Management tracks cash flows and settlements through their lifecycle while avoiding double accounting. In addition, it displays cash valuation of noncash assets of liquidity e.g. unencumbered assets, pledged collateral.

Flexible and configurable
Users can manually adjust balances and create cash flows within a controlled process. Specific users can configure new balance types to provide different perspectives of cash and liquidity.

Automated sweeping
TLM Cash & Liquidity Management provides automated sweeping to manage the transfer of funds between accounts, at specific times determined by the user. The automated processes are initiated before currency and account cut-off times, but users retain the control to verify proposed transactions or initiate manual processing.

Auditability and control
TLM Cash & Liquidity Management improves control over liquidity, issuing alerts when actual balances fall outside intraday long and short limits. RAG statuses indicate when forecast balances exceed minimum and maximum thresholds. Discrepancies can be identified and investigated easily. Users can justify positions through snapshots and analyse unexpected deviations. The system also creates exceptions which highlight data or configuration issues.

Reduced Credit Risk
The solution allows financial institutions to calculate their total exposure to specified counterparties by offsetting payables and receivables. Using a common reference field, the system can show netted cash flows from a variety of data feeds.

BCBS 248 reporting
TLM Cash & Liquidity Management provides regulatory reporting within the BCBS 248 framework and its equivalent local implementations by national financial authorities e.g. the HKMA or the PRA.

Liquidity profiling capabilities
Advanced analytical tools allow users to profile the timeline of actual account positions to the minute, based on booking or messaging timestamps. Balance behaviour can also be compared with typical behaviour.

Payment Flow Control
TLM Cash & Liquidity Management’s payment flow control tool promotes the active management of liquidity, giving financial institutions the ability to route payments at the time of their choosing, as well as to block payments, based on configurable parameters.

A model client solution
TLM Cash & Liquidity Management is a Model Client solution. The model client approach combines mutualised knowledge from SmartStream’s extensive client base and industry best practice to create a standardised template. Clients can pick the elements they require, speeding up implementation, but can also tailor the solution to their individual requirements by deploying the Model Client.

Operational dashboards
TLM View is an attractive, highly flexible user interface. It offers a series of customisable dashboards, which can be easily configured at runtime by business users with no IT support, enabling end users to view and interrogate all real-time and historic data. Full analytics are available, so trend analysis can be carried out in order to improve operational outcomes.

• Reduced overdraft fees and increased opportunity costs: TLM Cash & Liquidity Management’s enhanced forecasting capabilities enables users to reduce overdraft fees and increase opportunity costs.
• Lowered intraday liquidity costs: Real-time visibility and greater control over intraday balances assist organisations to lower intraday liquidity costs.
• Curbed intraday liquidity exposure: Real-time visibility, improved control over intraday balances, plus the ability to manage payment flow, enables firms to reduce intraday liquidity exposure.
• Enhanced funding accuracy: Automated late trade flagging, combined with TLM Cash & Liquidity Management’s market-leading reconciliations capability, lead to greater funding accuracy.
• Regulatory compliance: The solution supports financial institutions to meet intraday liquidity monitoring and reporting obligations through its BCBS 248, HKMA and PRA reporting templates.
• Evidence based business case to reduce liquidity buffers: Firms using the solution can, by demonstrating the visibility of their balance sheets, and by being able to show that they have the necessary tools to control risk, strengthen their business case for the removal of liquidity buffer add-ons.
• Creates synergies between front, middle and back office: The front, middle and back offices have access to cash and liquidity information via one platform, thereby avoiding data manipulation. This becomes a single source of truth, creating synergies between the various areas of a bank.
• Improved customer service: Shorter funding cut-offs and better error identification lead to superior customer service.
• EOD nostro reconciliation: TLM Cash & Liquidity Management reduces reliance on end-of-day nostro reconciliation.
• Scalable & with a global operating model: TLM Cash & Liquidity Management is scalable, can handle high volumes of transactions, and uses a multi-entity, multi-region, multi-time zone business model. This global operating model makes it possible to manage funds around the clock and maximise investments as soon as funds become available rather than waiting for local offices open.
• Cloud deployment: The solution is available via the Cloud. This option provides a more rapid and cost-effective route to adoption, also enabling a quicker return on investment to be achieved. Firms have the ability to scale their operations more efficiently and it’s a faster route for adopting new data strategies.
• Model Client: accelerated delivery, flexibility & lower costs: The Model Client approach accelerates delivery of the solution while giving clients the flexibility to tailor the solution to their individual requirements. It keeps costs down and facilitates quicker ROI.
• Return on investment: TLM Cash & Liquidity Management has created proven financial benefits for its users. For example, a Tier 1 bank saved $350k per year as a result of decommissioning old systems, a Tier 1 bank reduced a $3.4bn liquidity buffer add-on due, in part, to its implementation of the solution’s front office module, and a Tier 2 universal bank saved over $20m annually, only one year after installing the solution in a single hub.