Simplifying payments and cash management processes

The challenge

INA Group had separate e-banking solutions with all business banks and existing processes requiring significant manual work every day. Continuous centralisation of treasury processes in the INA Group meant that the quantity of work and risk factor would only increase over time. Identifying a seamless process for financial transaction processing, integrating all bank channels with existing treasury management and ERP systems, embracing automation and standardised processes as much as possible to ultimately increase efficiencies and reduce costs was the ultimate challenge. A reliable corporate–to-bank communication channel and timely access to information for reporting and decision making purposes was therefore critical for the INA treasury department.

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We expected improved internal communication through automation and we are delighted with the results – users can process transactions more easily and they have feedback on the payment status in the same screen instead of needing to use separate e-banking system for each bank and each company. Reporting on the number and value of transactions is much easier than before.

The solution

By identifying very specific project requirements in the planning phase, the INA and Swift teams were confident that Swift Alliance Lite2, the cloud-based financial messaging solution, was the right choice for INA’s bank connectivity needs. Implementing the solution required the existing e-banking terminals to be replaced by a single channel of bank communication and single point of approval. This meant connecting the existing ERP with multiple banks through an industry standard solution. In the first phase, banks and companies in Croatia were included, with others due to be covered in the next phase(s) of the project.

INA followed a pragmatic and professional approach to prepare for the Swift implementation project. INA had prepared SAP at group level for the implementation: the processes and standards had already been centralised for the entities in the initial scope of the project, and the pilot bank had been involved early in the discussions with Swift.

A project of this nature takes considerable and careful planning to deliver a successful outcome. It was not sufficient just to meet the short term needs; the solution also needed to be scalable and able to support INA into the future. INA is well placed to gain further benefits from its Swift investment by taking advantage of a wide range of additional corporate services and solutions offered by Swift.

The project consisted of three separate mini-projects: the installation of SAP Bank Communication; middleware development; and setting up the connection to Swift. INA is currently conducting testing with other Croatian banks with a view to them going live by mid-2019, and other (foreign) banks and companies will be included in the next phase(s).

The future

By embracing automation and industry standard financial messaging, INA is well placed to further digitise its financial processing activities and to take advantage. INA plans to roll out Alliance Lite to all its business banks and INA Group Companies, and potentially to cover some other bank products (such as Letters of Credit and Bank Guarantees) in the future.

INA is well placed to gain further benefits from its Swift investment by taking advantage of a wide range of additional corporate services and solutions offered by Swift, such as gpi for Corporates, and the KYC Registry.

Key milestones