Here's all you need to know about BofAML's new CashPro Accelerate

It's now available to treasury management clients in 12 markets in Asia Pacific.

Bank of America Merrill Lynch Global Transaction Services recently announced the launch of the CashPro Accelerate reporting solution which is already available in Australia, China, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Japan, South Korea, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, Taiwan and Thailand.‬

Combining Microsoft Excel with XML technology, CashPro Accelerate empowers clients in Asia Pacific to accurately and efficiently manage global cash positions via timely data processing. The key benefits of the solution include streamlined cash position reporting, reduced manual processing, enhanced reconciliation functions, automated cash journal entries, account management across various banks and customized data templates.‬

Asian Banking and Finance interviewed Amit Sharma, BofAML's Head of eCommerce and Channels for Asia Pacific, to know more about CashPro Accelerate.

ABF: What spurred the launch of Bank of America Merrill Lynch’s CashPro Accelerate solution in Asia Pacific?
Across Asia Pacific, treasurers are raising the bar. From where we stand, the ongoing shift to more sophisticated treasury management practices continues to gather pace with each year, as do the solutions required to maximize cash visibility.

The evolution of treasury management in this region clearly plays to our strengths. We design, develop and launch all of our solutions with client requirements front-and-center. CashPro Accelerate is no different in the sense that it exemplifies our commitment to developing solutions that both cater to growing market sophistication and premeditate future treasury requirements in Asia Pacific.

Before launching CashPro Accelerate in Asia Pacific, we examined the issues facing our client base in Asia Pacific. Specifically, we understood that achieving visibility of funds across both financial institutions and markets was becoming a more common challenge and that treasurers in the region would benefit from a single, secure and user-friendly solution.

For example, many treasuries in this region have long-relied on outdated manual processes, especially when examining company balances and for essential functions such as cash reporting.

CashPro Accelerate addresses the inefficiencies born of manual processes via features including Automated Updates, linking with CashPro Online, Bank of America Merrill Lynch’s virtual cash management solution, to retrieve bank account information, which in turn is saved to a local storehouse, populated in Excel worksheets and accessible for clients at any time.

Additionally, the General Ledger interface, which automates the creation of cash journal entries based upon user-defined accounts and rules, further tackles issues that arise from manual processing.

Furthermore, we believe that the Automated Reconciliation feature, whereby clients are provided with a comparison of the prior day‘s cash forecast with that day‘s final postings, is a powerful tool for treasurers to achieve visibility over daily movements in cash flow.

Similarly, CashPro Accelerate’s ability to collate multiple local accounts, cross-border accounts and multibank accounts into a single source offers both a flexible and holistic view of balances to enable more accurate decision making and forecasting at the treasury level.

ABF: What's new about it for BAML?
The launch of CashPro Accelerate in Asia Pacific is emblematic of our broader regional build out, where solutions, support and services have evolved substantially at a regional and country level. We have strengthened core infrastructure, and introduced important and relevant new capabilities both regionally and locally in Asia Pacific.

CashPro Accelerate’s regional rollout is consistent with our deepening market presence in Asia Pacific and indicative of the substantial business momentum we continue to build in this strategic region. Furthermore, Bank of America Merrill Lynch’s Global Transaction Services (GTS) growing commitment to clients in Asia Pacific can be measured via ongoing investment in innovative and relevant technology solutions and a rapidly evolving coverage model across product, sales and service.

Additionally, the launch of CashPro Accelerate is complemented by the announcement that POSCO Investments Co. Ltd. has implemented the solution, demonstrating our penetration into the top tier local corporate market segment in Asia Pacific.

ABF: What do you hope to achieve with this initiative?
We understand client needs and continuously adapt and innovate to meet these needs on an ongoing basis, with technology serving as a powerful incubator. Technology helps manage risk and address regulatory issues, enables solution development and strengthens relationships between treasuries and their banking partners.

CashPro Accelerate ticks these boxes, providing greater transparency, better risk management, enhanced operational efficiency and clear cost rationalization. Ask any treasurer in the region, regardless of size, scope or sector, and the aforementioned benefits would be consistent with treasury and larger business strategies in Asia Pacific.

Enhanced cash reporting visibility is another major achievement that CashPro Accelerate can deliver. Globally, every treasurer wants to see and track balances at different levels – and Asia Pacific is no different. For example, treasurers want to create their own specific consolidation of balances, be it at internal department level (manufacturing, sales etc) across Financial Institutions, markets, currencies etc.

This goal does not vary across the region or across sectors. Via CashPro Accelerate and by using Excel capabilities to do the same in their own environment, clients can automate the data flow from the bank to their own reporting systems, providing the accuracy of real time data and flexibility of Excel. At the same time, the treasurer can further slice and dice the information accurately.

ABF: What can you tell us about CashPro Accelerate that is exclusively for ABF's editorial coverage?
As treasuries in Asia Pacific take a more regional and global view to cash management as businesses expand, end-to-end foreign exchange visibility will become a greater priority. The solution also provides daily exchange rates, using both the clients’ and our own internal rates, in a single currency exchange rate sheet. Using these foreign exchange rates, clients’ data can be automatically converted to different base currencies allowing them to effectively monitor their foreign exchange exposure.

CashPro Accelerate can further help our clients to provide various reporting features like a ‘top clients’ list, who always pay on time, top defaulters that always delay in payment, management of regional or global contract negotiation by providing holistic view of overall spending by the organization on a specific vendor like hotel chains, travel companies, credit card companies, etc. The solution truly covers many bases.