“With their seamless integration of different financial systems, open APIs make our customers' cash management more efficient. They automate data transfer and make financial information accessible in real time,” says Susanne Prager, Head of Cash Management at RBI. This interoperability improves decision-making and streamlines processes and is particularly interesting for large companies, financial institutions, fintech companies and companies with complex financial operations. 

“At RBI, we have expanded the open API offering over the last years, for example in terms of country coverage, SAP integration and on-time notifications,” says Susanne Prager. With Hungary and Romania, two of RBI's large network banks are now also connected via real-time APIs and are therefore available via the RBI Group APIs. “Treasurers can now retrieve real-time cash management data from accounts in Austria, Kosovo, Serbia, Hungary and Romania. All other RBI countries will also be connected soon.”

RBI is now an official member bank of SAP’s Multi-Bank Connectivity (MBC) network and has integrated with MBC via open APIs. This integration brings numerous benefits to joint customers of RBI and SAP, such as easier and faster integration processes. “RBI has become a standardized connection method for onboarding, streamlining and accelerating the entire process”, the cash management expert explains. “Additionally, RBI is one of the few banks to have integrated the full range of core payment formats via APIs.” 

“With RBI's on-time notifications for camt.052, customers can now experience the convenience of real-time updates,” explains the specialist. The innovative feature keeps customers informed about their intraday account movements, including inflows and outflows. The system actively generates a standard intraday statement for camt.052 as soon as a transaction was made on the account (debit or credit). The detailed statement with comprehensive transaction and balance information is automatically made available via the open API connection immediately after each account movement.

“The most important digital innovations and trends in cash management include artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML),” says Susanne Prager. “We can use these tools to improve predictive analytics, fraud detection and automated decision-making.”

Cloud computing, which makes scalability, accessibility and data storage much easier, and big data analytics are also important developments in cash management. “Big data provides us with insights for better cash flow management and better forecasts.”

These digital innovations and trends in cash management are particularly interesting for large companies that need to manage complex cash flows, liquidity and financial operations efficiently in real-time, but also SMEs that are looking for scalable, cost-efficient solutions to optimize their cash management. "We are committed to make these technolgies’ potentials and benefits accessible to both our corporate and institutional clients," says Susanne Prager. "Through co-creation workshops, we invite our customers to collaborate with us in developing tangible use-cases and solutions, turning the latest market innovations into high-performance products."

“New forms of so-called digitized money, such as stablecoins or w-CBDCs, have the potential to revolutionize the financial sector,” explains Susanne Prager. Although they are still in their infancy, recent regulatory advances, such as the MiCAR framework in Europe, have laid the foundation for their development. “We expect that this, combined with the current interest rate environment, will lead to more EUR stablecoins entering the market. Stablecoins could play a crucial role in digital transformation, especially in cross-border payments and securities transactions, as well as in more novel applications such as micropayments for pay-on-demand services.” 

In addition, several major central banks are exploring the concept of wholesale central bank digital currencies (w-CBDCs). The Bank for International Settlements (BIS) is leading the way with projects such as mBridge and Agora. The aim is to develop a standardized platform for central bank transactions that offers a new and more efficient settlement mechanism to improve and supplement the prevailing correspondent banking transactions.

“Although these developments are still at an early stage, RBI is following these innovations very closely,” says the cash management expert.