One of the biggest hassles for corporate treasurers is the paper-shuffling required to open, close, or otherwise change bank accounts. “This is a huge pain point,” says Stacey Rosenthall, senior business manager for payments and corporate strategy with SWIFT Americas. In fact, about half of companies have four or more employees focused on bank account management, SWIFT research shows. Opening an account takes more than 2 weeks at about one-third of firms. SWIFT is the acronym for Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication, a cooperative that facilitates the exchange of millions of standardized financial messages daily.

Fortunately, some relief is in sight. In March, SWIFT, working with corporate finance departments, IT vendors, and banks went live with EBAM, or electronic bank account management. With this, one of the remaining manual treasury processes is undergoing automation.

EBAM has been several years in the making, Rosenthall says. About 2 years ago, a group came together to develop the standards behind the process. Last summer, several pilot implementations got under way. Earlier this year, EBAM achieved ISO certification. In March, the offering went live.

With EBAM, many of the previously manual and paper-intensive processes inherent in managing bank accounts now can be completed electronically. Moreover, companies can use the process for accounts they have with different banking partners. So, rather than mail, fax, or email documents to banks in order to change the signatories on an account, a company can send a secure XML message that the bank’s systems will receive and understand. (XML, or Extensible Markup Language, is a set of rules for encoding documents electronically.) Loan agreements and other documents can be electronically attached to the EBAM message and transmitted virtually, as well, Rosenthall adds. EBAM also allows for the transmission of digital signatures.

Treasurers who are interested in EBAM should check with their banks to see their time frame for rolling it out. Some, such as JPMorgan, have said that they’re ready to go. Others are still are getting their EBAM offerings in place. Companies also may have to implement front-end EBAM applications on their own systems. More info on SWIFT’s EBAM initiative can be found here. ###