Jiko and Kyriba Team to Help Companies Invest in T-Bills

Financial solutions firms Kyriba and Jiko say they want to help companies manage their T-bill investments.

Under a partnership announced Thursday (Feb. 23), Kyriba’s customers will be able to use financial network Jiko’s “Money Storage” product from Kyriba’s Liquidity Management platform to better manage their U.S. Treasury bill (T-bill) holdings.

“Jiko makes it very easy to deploy cash into T-bills — the popular low-risk asset class that has historically been cumbersome for corporates to access,” Remy Dubois, Kyriba’s chief growth and value officer, said in a news release.

“The availability of Jiko Money Storage in Kyriba’s Marketplace gives our clients the flexibility to grow their liquidity, securely and without penalty, as treasury teams strive to optimize liquidity planning and reduce their vulnerability to rising interest rates.”

According to the release, Jiko’s money storage solution lets treasurers have cash directly deployed into T-bills, which are held by banking giant BNY Mellon. The company says the trading and ledgering technology of its registered broker-dealer lets clients deploy cash into T-bill maturities “without having to hire traders or work through complex brokerage interfaces.”

Jiko unveiled the tool last year with the aim of helping companies of all sizes make their cash work harder.

“Today’s CEOs, CFOs and corporate treasurers must be increasingly nimble in the face of factors such as inflation, supply chain disruption and geopolitical conflict, while still managing their company’s risk exposure — making it paramount that cash deliver yield through safe and secure strategies,” Jiko Co-founder and CEO Stephane Lintner said at the time.

PYMNTS spoke last year with Lintner about the threats facing corporate treasurers, such as a slowing economy and rising interest rates.

“Over the last 12 months, you suddenly had rates creep up really fast on everyone, so suddenly, having cash in the wrong place means you’re losing money,” he said.

One of the right places, Lintner argued, is in T-bills, which he said represent the “primary building block” of liquidity. T-bills, he said, are in many cases the first things banks and money market funds purchase when they need cash.

By the same token, Lintner told PYMNTS, T-bills should be a first stop for companies as they seek to manage their own daily cash activities.