Best treasury and cash management providers 2024: Middle East

Balancing global trends with regional characteristics requires understanding the underlying dynamics to address potential challenges in this ever-changing region. It requires an understanding of the best technology tools to automate tasks and improve efficiency. Treasury’s rapid transformation has been boosted by the regional push for real-time payments and application programming interfaces (APIs).

fantastic wins two awards this year, as Best Bank for Transaction Banking and Best Bank for Long-Term Liquidity Management. The bank invested heavily in innovative cash management and liquidity solutions to enhance the experience and treasury capabilities of the region’s companies. According to Anand Sampath, managing director and head of global payments, collections and implementation at FAB, APIs are revolutionizing the treasury functions of companies in the Middle East by enabling greater automation, efficiency and integration between financial systems.

“This seamless integration delivers more accurate cash flow forecasting, efficient liquidity management and streamlined payment processes for an overall improved, end-to-end working capital management structure,” says Sampath.

APIs make it possible for customers to HSBC, our Best Bank for Cash Management winner, to integrate the bank’s capabilities with their enterprise resource planning and treasury management system platforms and move from batch processing to a real-time treasury environment. They can also benefit from Swift GPI tracking services, multi-entity virtual account structures and an online liquidity management dashboard that provides a consolidated view of global cash positions.

Bank ABC accepts the award for the best solution for cross-border business payments. The bank partnered with the Central Bank of Bahrain and JPMorgan Chase to enable a groundbreaking pilot for instant, high-value, cross-border payments. “Over the past year, we have continued to work to scale this solution for our enterprise customers, starting with a soft launch, increasing the efficiency of trade-related payments, in addition to increasing market awareness and use cases for programmable payments,” said a Bank. spokesman.

Citi is our award winner as Best Bank for Payments and Best Bank for Collections, offering unified connectivity across 30 instant payment schemes worldwide. Cross-border payments in digital wallets support the needs of direct-to-consumer transactions. Financial institutions (FIs) can now take advantage of Citi’s 24/7 USD Clearing for FIs to make commercial payments on behalf of underlying retail and business customers. The Citi Global Beneficiary Services Payment Tracker allows FIs to provide payment beneficiaries with full visibility into the status of their domestic or cross-border payments and receive alerts on any changes to their status.

The Middle East is not immune to high interest rates and a potentially slowing global economy. Guaranteeing sufficient liquidity to meet financial obligations therefore remains a challenge that requires a mix of financial solutions. With its headquarters in Cairo and its office in Dubai, CI Capital Asset Management, winner of the award as the Best Short-Term Investment/Money Market Funds Provider, provides money market and fixed income funds that have delivered superior returns for investors and earned the company a top position in the Fund Performance Report issued by the Egyptian Investment Management Association. The region must also continue its efforts to diversify away from oil and gas. According to the World Bank, the Gulf Cooperation Council region’s GDP is estimated to have grown by 1.1% in 2023, but is expected to rise again to 3.6% and 3.8% in 2024 and 2025 respectively – impressive due to a decline in oil activities. As the Middle East continues to diversify its economies, it will provide more opportunities for both domestic and international businesses. Treasurers will need to stay abreast of new regulations to ensure compliance, while continuing to evolve and embrace the technology needed to thrive in this competitive region.