As COO, you know it’s essential to tackle operational inefficiencies and keep costs down.
But where should you be focusing?
DRIVING OPERATIONAL EFFICIENCY
ARTICLE
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Keeping on top of operational costs
How does this all help me?
Data integration
Keeping on top of operational costs
Keep costs down
SWIFT gpi
Data integration
achieved their ROI technology targets on risk mitigation within their payments initiatives
For COOs, streamlining operations and keeping costs to a minimum is a high priority in today’s environment. Regulatory, asset class and market changes all have cost implications which need to be managed – and firms are also looking to overcome the difficulties arising from fragmented data. At the same time, companies have to strike a balance between keeping headcount costs down and recruiting the talent they need to expand into new asset classes.
Considering these challenges, it’s no wonder that COOs are looking to take advantage of economies of scale wherever possible, and to consolidate their systems to fewer vendors that can offer more value for money. They’re also looking closely at how they can use opportunities such as BPaaS to outsource some of their challenges to a trusted partner.
Firms are looking to expand into new asset classes and tap into the opportunities brought by crypto but, to support this shift, they may first need to recruit people with skillsets that aren’t currently available in-house.
This isn’t necessarily straightforward. In today’s environment, many organizations are doing everything they can to minimize costs which includes keeping headcount to a minimum. At the same time, staff recruitment and retention has become increasingly challenging. The ‘Great Resignation’ has led to new difficulties with staff retention, while firms are also struggling to manage the impact of wage inflation and rising labor costs.
As such, more firms are looking at opportunities to outsource certain roles by taking advantage of BPaaS – meaning that firms can focus their attention on their most pressing priorities.
Finding and retaining talent
Keep costs down
Speak to us
Let's solve global payments
Keeping costs to a minimum is a priority for companies everywhere – and payments are often more expensive than they need to be. The good news is that some payment initiatives offer new opportunities to achieve significant savings through lower cost payment methods and economies of scale. Here’s how some of the latest payment innovations can help:
Finding and retaining talent
STREAMLINE YOUR OPERATIONS
getinfo@fisglobal.com
Source: FIS Readiness Report 2021
Central bank digital currencies
ROI achievements on payment initiatives
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Source: FIS Readiness Report 2021
Real-time cash reporting allows you to access your account statements and balances in real time via APIs – so you can use that information faster and incorporate it into different business processes. For example, you might quickly identify that the balance on a particular account is zero, and that funds need to be transferred over before a particular payment can be released.
Real-time cash reporting
SWIFT gpi allows banks to track the status of cross-border payments end-to-end. What’s more, banks can also enable customers to track payments in real-time from their treasury and payment systems – meaning there’s no need to spend hours trying to pin down the status of individual payments.
SWIFT gpi
Central bank digital currencies, while nascent, could provide additional payment methods with central bank issued money.
Central bank digital currencies
Real-time payments are cleared within seconds, instead of minutes, hours or days – which takes the uncertainty out of the settlement process and provides instant visibility over the status of payments. Modern real-time payment schemes can also carry more remittance data than traditional payment methods, speeding up the reconciliation process.
Real-time payments
Benefits of real-time payments
35%
Improved liquidity management
Real-time view of cash position
32%
Access to transaction data
30%
Reduce costs
39%
Improve control and visibility
42%
Reduce fraud risk
44%
rivers for increasing investment in digital tech
Central bank digital currencies have the potential to offer more efficiency and replace the handling of cash and associated costs.
Central bank digital currencies
FIS RealNet is the industry’s first SaaS-based account-to-account payments platform. Instead of having to use individual niche fintech providers in different markets and contexts, companies can use RealNet’s network of networks to identify and use the most cost-effective routing for each transaction.
FIS RealNet
Real-time payments are typically associated with a lower cost than more traditional Real Time Gross Settlement (RTGS) payment methods. They can also drive process efficiencies that may lead to further cost savings.
Real-time cash reporting
SWIFT gpi once again has benefits to offer where costs are concerned as the service provides greater transparency over costs and charges.
SWIFT gpi
Source: FIS Readiness Report 2021
indicate they are taking advantage of real-time payments
ROI achievements on key drivers
Are you harnessing innovation?
It’s no secret that operational costs are continuing to rise in today’s fast-moving landscape. Regulatory, market and asset-class changes are all driving up the cost of managing infrastructure. At the same time, firms are being confronted with soaring energy and resource costs.
In this climate, COOs are looking to address unpredictable and inconsistent cost structures throughout their infrastructure – for example, by taking advantage of opportunities to harness economies of scale.
While the payments space is rich in innovation, it isn’t always obvious how specific initiatives can actually help your organization. Before you can identify the benefits of different initiatives and developments, it’s important to pinpoint the challenges you’re facing, and ask yourself whether different initiatives can solve these challenges in a way that suits your firm. In today’s market, companies’ top priorities include gaining visibility over payments, preventing fraud and reducing costs.
So, what happens when we look at some of the most interesting payment innovations through each of these lenses?
Having access to integrated data is important: it not only helps firms save time and money, but also reduces the risk of incurring fines because of issues relating to data. What’s more, having all the relevant data in one place enables firms to make investment decisions faster and, ultimately, make more money.
In reality, many COOs continue to struggle with disparate systems and data sources. These challenges can arise when firms adopt best-of-breed systems for different needs and, equally, pursuing growth through acquisition often results in fragmented data, with legacy systems that do not integrate with each other well.
As such, COOs are looking for ways to connect those systems more effectively and thereby reduce operational costs and inefficiencies.
Likewise, firms are seeking to extract more value from the data available by taking advantage of artificial intelligence and, to achieve this, you first need to have full control over your data.
SWIFT gpi offers a pre-validation service that allows banks to validate the beneficiary’s account information with the beneficiary bank. It also includes a Stop & Recall service that allows corporate customers to ask their banks to stop fraudulent or erroneous payments.
Central bank digital currencies have the potential to reduce the risk of fraud as they increase the traceability of transactions and support greater monitoring of financial activity.
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FIS is a leading provider of technology solutions for merchants, banks and capital markets firms globally.
Our more than 55,000 people are dedicated to advancing the way the world pays, banks and invests by applying our scale, deep expertise and data-driven insights. We help our clients use technology in innovative ways to solve business-critical challenges and deliver superior experiences for their customers. Headquartered in Jacksonville, Florida, FIS is a Fortune 500® company and is a member of Standard & Poor’s 500® Index.
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COOs are looking to address unpredictable and inconsistent cost structures
COOs continue to struggle with disparate data sources
“Firms need to embrace crypto and new investments, while figuring out how to use artificial intelligence – which means they need to upgrade the talent they have available. But they also need to keep headcount costs to a minimum.”
Pontus Eriksson, Strategy Director FIS
For COOs, streamlining operations and keeping costs to a minimum is a high priority in today’s environment. Regulatory, asset class and market changes all have cost implications which need to be managed – and firms are also looking to overcome the difficulties arising from fragmented data. At the same time, companies have to strike a balance between keeping headcount costs down and recruiting the talent they need to expand into new asset classes.
Considering these challenges, it’s no wonder that COOs are looking to take advantage of economies of scale wherever possible, and to consolidate their systems to fewer vendors that can offer more value for money. They’re also looking closely at how they can use opportunities such as BPaaS to outsource some of their challenges to a trusted partner.
STREAMLINE YOUR OPERATIONS
Streamline your operations
Working with numerous systems and vendors results in unnecessary operational costs, as well as making it
difficult to monetize your data. Consider consolidating your technology in order to gain more control over your data and take advantage of economies of scale.
Consolidate your systems and vendors
How can you keep headcount costs under control while making sure you have access to the talent you need? One solution is to make use of the opportunities presented by business process as a service (BpaaS): by outsourcing some of your activities to managed services experts you can free up your resources to focus on more pressing goals.
Harness outsourcing opportunities
Get in touch
Get in touch to learn more
MAXIMIZE EFFICIENCY, MINIMIZE COSTS
