Paramount Group uses Fides to automate payments and reporting, freeing treasury staff to concentrate on business-critical projects
New York-based real estate investment firm Paramount Group needed a connectivity solution that could handle SWIFT payments with more than 180 accounts within eight banks, and seamlessly connect with the company’s TMS to centralize payments and reporting.
Paramount Group is a best-in-class owner, operator and manager of Class A office properties. Its buildings are some of the most sought after in New York City, Washington, D.C. and San Francisco. Since the company’s inception in 1978, it has been the landlord of choice for the world’s largest names in the financial, legal, professional services and media industries.
Paramount Group has a small treasury team that needs to be agile and nimble. The real estate investment firm determined t hat a utomating a nd s treamlining i ts payments and reporting processes would help with overall business efficiency and free up treasury staff time for more pressing business needs. To achieve this goal would require centralization of treasury activities, plus establishing secure connections for SWIFT payments with more than 180 accounts within eight banks.
The company initially chose the City Financial treasury management system. During the TMS implementation, Paramount Group decided to also look for a bank connectivity solution for reporting and payments. This service would handle the conversion of formats needed between the TMS and banks, and provide reporting on those messages. Paramount Group opted to use Fides as a service bureau for payments and messaging.
The decision to go with Fides was an easy one: City Financial and Fides already had a number of joint customers and could demonstrate proven success. Fides’ track record as the leader in multi-banking solutions also came into play, as that industry expertise meant that less time would be required from Paramount Group’s treasury team to get everything set up.
Fides’ account reporting and electronic file transfer solutions can seamlessly integrate with TMS systems on the back end. All transactions flow through the City Financial TMS to Fides, which then makes any necessary conversions and executes the transfers. The same process happens in reverse for any inbound messaging.
The City Financial implementation took six months in total. Fides was brought in approximately three months into the process, which Paramount Group’s treasury manager, Manny Foutoulis, says helped to significantly shorten the overall time to value.
Another thing that was shortened was the amount of manual work. Centralizing the functions within the TMS, with Fides on the back end, eliminated the need for the company’s small treasury team to spend excessive amounts of time in individual bank portals and Excel spreadsheets.
Having Fides manage all the bank connections provides flexibility and scalability to support any future growth. While two or three bank portals may be manageable, albeit more time-consuming, working with eight different portals would take more time than a team of three has to give. With Fides, all the bank transfers are executed from a single system; it doesn’t matter whether they are going to the eight U.S. banks currently online or eighty banks across the globe.
Using Fides as a service bureau also provides flexibility in the event that Paramount Group decides to change TMS providers — there is no need to reestablish all of the bank connections individually.
Paramount Group is currently looking into using Fides’ reconciliation capabilities. These services can also be managed on the back end, through the City Financial TMS, and would help the company with better cash visibility and cash positioning.
Fides is the world leader in multibank connectivity, payments and transaction communications. A market leader for more than a century, Fides is committed to making financial operations as efficient, transparent and secure as possible for all organizations. More than 4,000 clients rely on Fides for efficient cash and liquidity management, through connectivity to more than 13,000 banks and comprehensive workflow, reporting, conversion, validation and security services. Whether you access via the secure Fides ONEHub or leverage our seamless integration with third-party ERP, TMS and other backend systems, Fides is the only platform you need.
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