Basics of US Banking and Cash Management
Level: Fundamental
Audience: Banks and corporates
Description: Originally designed as a three-day workshop this could be condensed into one or two days with a reduced agenda. The purpose of this workshop is to provide people with little or no cash management background with the basic concepts of the US banking system, collection, disbursement and concentration techniques, the fundamentals of liquidity management and bank relationship management. At the end of the workshop they will have a thorough understanding of the fundamentals of cash management, the cash manager's role, how it fits in to the finance function and why it is so important to companies.
Agenda:
1. US Banking Environment and Payment Systems
- Historical perspective
- Regulatory environment
- The Federal Reserve
- Regulation of the industry
- Significant legislation
- Reserve regulations
- The Uniform Commercial Code (UCC)
- The US banking structure
- Types of financial institution
2. The Role of Cash Management
- The operating cycle
- The cash flow cycle
- The importance of liquidity
- Sources and uses of funds
3. What is Cash Management?
- Short-term funding and investment
- Day-to-day cash control
- Receipts
- Payments
- Trade finance
- Foreign exchange transactions and hedging
- Working capital management
- The US cash management model
4. Making Payments
- The US culture
- Paper-based
- Electronic
- Plastic
5. Managing Cash Inflows: Part 1 Collections
- Objectives of a collection system
- Collection float
- Funds availability
- Designing a collection system
- Collection methods
- Lockboxes
- Electronic collections
- Latest developments
- Strategies for efficient collections
6. Managing Cash Inflows: Part 2 Concentration
- Objectives of a concentration system
- Concentration system design
- One bank concentration
- Multi-bank concentration
- Lockbox networks
- The future of concentration
- Strategies for efficient concentration
7. Managing Cash Outflows – Disbursements
- Objectives of a disbursement system
- Disbursement float
- Specialized disbursement vehicles
- Fraud prevention and control
- Reconciliation options
- Purchasing cards
- Future of disbursements
- Strategies for efficient disbursement
8. Working Capital Management - Part 1 Forecasting
- Importance of forecasting
- Issues
- Methods
- Forecasting exercises
9. Working Capital Management - Part 2 Short-term Investing
- Investment objectives
- Short-term investment options
- Calculating investment returns
- Investment strategies
10. Working Capital Management - Part 3 Short-term Borrowing
- Borrowing objectives
- Short-term borrowing options
- Calculating the all-in cost of borrowing
- Restrictions and caveats
11. How to Organize the Treasury Function
- Levels of treasury centralization
- Typical banking structure
- Considerations for treasury structure
- Centralized treasury
- Decentralized treasury
- Partially centralized treasury
- Managing the US cash position from overseas
- Treasury structures of the future
12. Bank Relationship Management
- Objectives of bank relationship management
- How many and what type of bank?
- Service provider selection
- The RFI/RFP process
- Standards for evaluating performance
- The account analysis
- Bank compensation practices
- The future of bank relationship management