Citi Adds Real-Time Funding to Treasury Offerings

Citi introduced Real-Time Funding (RTF), part of its real-time treasury solutions for corporate customers.

“Citi RTF enables the automated movement of funds between cross-border accounts based on predefined rules set by the client, helping them ensure that cash is available when and where it’s needed,” the company said in a news release Monday (June 10).

Benefits of RTF include instant, automated funding between intercompany accounts on a 24/7 basis; reduced need for account buffers, prefunding and borrowing; and the timely and automated release of both domestic and cross-border payments, according to the release.

“With the introduction of Citi RTF, Citi continues to deliver best-in-class, real-time treasury solutions to help our clients remain competitive and agile,” said Stephen Randall, global head of liquidity management services for Citi Services, in the release. “With the proliferation of instant payments and evolving business models, treasuries must be able to support rapidly growing, 24/7 cash flows.”

In today’s complex financial and regulatory environment, treasurers strive to improve data and technology strategies, according to the PYMNTS Intelligence report “The Treasury Management Playbook: Technology Strategies and Best Practices.” However, improvements don’t always require massive investments or rebuilding a technology stack from scratch.

“Treasury teams that may be behind the curve today can [improve] by implementing several relatively low-cost, low-effort upgrades,” the report said. “These include automatic daily reconciliation across all bank accounts and data visualization tools that leverage existing treasury and company-wide datasets.”

Elsewhere in the world of treasury management, PYMNTS explored the challenges and complexities of cash management in an interview this month with Noam Mills, CEO at Panax.

“Cash flow can be a blind spot for the finance team,” said Mills, explaining that traditional cash flow management can often be dependent on manual processes and reactive measures.

But with the advent of artificial intelligence, modern solutions that use this technology are playing a role in automating and streamlining financial processes for complex treasury organizations.

“The key word here is complexity,” Mills told PYMNTS. “And complexity can arise from many different sources, whether it’s the holding structure or the nature of the business.”