Bank of America has unveiled a platform to help business clients digitize trade finance.
The company’s CashPro Supply Chain Solutions tool is designed to offer supply chain participants “improved process efficiency and working capital optimization,” Bank of American said in a Monday (Sept. 18) press release.
The platform is rolling out with Open Account Automation, a module designed to offer approval for invoice payments in minutes, speeding a process that can often take days or weeks, according to the release.
“Trade finance is still a paper-heavy industry despite advances in technology, due in large part to the dependency on traditional manual processes,” said Geoff Brady, head of global trade and supply chain finance in Global Transaction Services (GTS) at Bank of America, in the release. “Eliminating that dependency was central to the design of CashPro Supply Chain Solutions, through which we’re introducing digitization on behalf of network participants.”
Open Account Automation absorbs and collates data within the supply chain to provide greater visibility, speed and automation, as well as quicker decision making, according to the release.
The platform will let companies digitally onboard suppliers, giving them access to real-time data and letting them know if their invoices have been approved for payment.
It also lets buyers “control the approval of invoices based on information presented by their suppliers, their logistics providers and their own warehouse receipting process.”
PYMNTS Intelligence found a link between automating accounts receivable (AR) processes and reducing days sales outstanding (DSO).
Data from “How Automations Reduce Receivables Delays,” a PYMNTS and Corcentric collaboration, found that 60% of finance chiefs at “highly automated” firms said improved processing speeds and real-time updates were vital for reducing their DSO.
The trade finance tool was the second CashPro-related announcement from Bank of America Monday. The bank also debuted an artificial intelligence (AI) powered upgrade to its virtual service adviser CashPro Chat.
“Finance teams today need access to information quickly, at any time of day, and from any location,” Tom Durkin, the bank’s global product head of CashPro in Global Transaction Services, said in a news release. “Whatever we can do to eliminate friction will help them respond better and faster to real-time events and demands.”
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