NSG Group: Optimising cross-border banking operations
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"AccessPay is secure which is a big advantage to the group as it reduces the opportunity for fraud and any operational error in inputting files correctly."
NSG Group is one of the world’s largest manufacturers of glass and glazing products for architectural, automotive and more recently, creative technology solutions.
With around 26,000 employees worldwide and operating in over 100 countries; streamlining operations has become a key driver towards their growth and digital transformation strategy.
Automating payments to drive efficiency within NSG Group
Christopher Davies, Treasury Risk and Reporting Manager at NSG Group, said: “The company was given a strategic aim towards more value-added activities across all business lines, so shifting away from manual, time-consuming processes to more high-value tasks was a real driver in this project. For example, we were horrified at the amount of time we were spending in our shared services centre manually keying bank statements into our systems. That was a process that was taking place day after day and one which we found could be quite easily automated.”
AccessPay provided NSG with a centralised platform where they could securely manage and automate their payments via the SWIFT network, removing the need to manually log in to bank portals. This also meant they could see a true picture of their cash flow meaning they could make more informed financial decisions to support their future growth targets (more on this later).
NSG Group choose AccessPay to connect to the SWIFT Network
Before finding AccessPay, Christopher investigated the options of creating an in-house solution for payments automation, but quickly realised creating this was much more complicated than anticipated. Resource required for building a solution like this would be extensive and expensive. Choosing a partner like AccessPay would also speed up time-to-value as they could get set up in a matter of weeks and using a trusted 3rd party like AccessPay means they could take advantage of their expert knowledge and strategic partnerships with some of the biggest global banks. Christopher saw value in AccessPay’s SWIFT application as he’d be able to gain secure access to the SWIFT network and connect all the company’s bank accounts through the AccessPay platform. Every payment, in every account, could be made, authorised, and tracked in one place.Learn more about SWIFT payments here
“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 have many subsidiaries using the system from several countries.”NSG no longer need to manually log in to bank portals to make payments, significantly speeding up the whole payment process for the finance team. There’s also an added layer of security as the AccessPay platform has built-in, secure payment controls which removed the need for smart cards and readers.
“We wanted to move away from online banking platforms – they’re not very efficient due to the various file formats for uploads. They also suffer from security issues in terms of file storage, significant time invested in systems administration, and, further down the line, audit requirements.”
With payment automation now embedded in their day-to-day processes, NSG’s finance team have saved time and reduced risk by removing unnecessary manual intervention.
NSG Group choose a Global Cash Management Solution
Most of NSG’s global banking estate is now managed through the AccessPay platform, using SWIFT’s MT messages to receive real-time data from accounts. With all accounts now managed in a centralised location, Christopher now has a true picture of the company’s finances, on a global scale. New accounts can easily be added into the system too so it can easily scale with the future growth targets of the business. NSG Group are also listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange and with principal operations in 30 countries worldwide, it’s no wonder scalability was non-negotiable.Christopher commented: “Scalability was 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.”
Reducing Risk in Corporate Banking Operations
Reducing risk within their operations was another key driver for NSG Group. Their financial data was stored in files and folders on an un-secure network. Global stats prove than only 5% of corporate files and folders are properly protected this way, and 95% of data breaches are caused by human error, so it was no wonder they wanted to find a way to better protect their payment processes.“Now everything is double encrypted and passed via a secure pathway to a file transfer protocol folder. AccessPay is secure which is a big advantage to the group as it reduces the opportunity for fraud and any operational error in inputting files correctly.”
AccessPay acts as a file-agnostic platform that automatically transforms messages to the correct format on behalf of the corporate client. This means that varying file formats and manual uploads are no longer a problem.
NSG Group now automate many of their payments through the AccessPay Platform, and they take advantage of the industry-leading cash visibility tool to make informed business decisions with their cash.
You can read more about how AccessPay’s Cash Management Solution can help you.