Industry Vertical: Global Freight Logistics
- Annual Sales Revenue: $49 billion
- Client Location: New Jersey
- Business Category: Corporate
- Axletree Client Category: Service Bureau
- Axletree Customer Since: February 21, 2008
- Time to Implementation: 25 Days
- Caselet Category: Streamline payments through SWIFT using a service bureau.
The Company specializes in global freight, supply chain management and logistics, transacting with banking partners across 15 countries. In the payments world, transacting with multiple banks across the globe without any standardization means dealing with “different message formats, different transmission methods, different data security protocols and proprietary encryption that were expensive and time-consuming,” explained The Controller for Finance and Accounting Systems. Refer to diagram 1(a)
They embarked on a project to make their A/P bulk payments more efficient and less cumbersome. While some corporate peers decided to build their SWIFT infrastructure in-house, The Company decided to take the Service Bureau (outsourced connectivity) route.
Instead of building one-off interfaces with banks in multiple countries to transmit A/P files, it turned to a single interface with Axletree’s SWIFT Service Bureau. “We needed a more efficient, repeatable solution,” the Controller explained, “Now data security and format is standardized allowing for lower costs in both time and cash.”
The Payment solution is working in 15 countries via an Oracle ERP. The ERP exports bulk payment files to an internal EDI application, which then sends the payments in EDI format to EasyLink, which forwards them to Axletree, putting the files in a SWIFT FileAct wrapper and sending them via SWIFT to Citibank and BNP Paribas in Europe. The banks execute the payments—wires, checks and ACH-like batch-processed low-dollar electronic payments. Typically, one disbursing account per country is used.
The Company will expand its solution to include more banks and more countries. “All future A/P deployments in new countries will come via SWIFT,” said the Controller, “It’s now a requirement to take SWIFT files if you want to be a disbursing bank for us.”
One of the key benefits of using a service bureau is simplicity.
Axletree Story: Axletree was selected from 9 global contending SWIFT Solutions providers. We had demonstrated our expertise in SWIFT throughout the RFP process to gain the confidence of the client. Axletree had assigned its top 3 SWIFT Experts to execute the Implementation in a record time of 4 weeks. Till date we have no support issues reported.
Industry Category: Financial Services (Travel Related Services and Credit Card)
- Annual Sales Revenue: $26 Billion
- Client Location: Utah
- Business Category: Corporate
- Axletree Client Category: Service Bureau
- Axletree Customer Since: June 30 2008
- Time to Implementation: 17 days – June 12 2008-June 30, 2008
- Caselet Category: Re-establish SWIFT connection with existing trading partners
The Company was historically a part of a larger conglomerate. In February 2008, Standard Chartered Bank acquired the parent company, however, leaving out the Travel Related Services (TRS) business and a branch of the bank in Greece. The acquisition left the TRS and Greece Divisions disconnected from SWIFT requiring them to establish their own identity on the network. With very little time on their side, TRS and Greece decided to connect to SWIFT via a service bureau; the advantage being a shorter time to connect to SWIFT. Refer diagram 2(a) and 2(b)
The burning need for TRS was to re-establish their identity over SWIFT and conduct business with their trading partners as soon as possible. TRS already had SWIFT in-house and a vendor to support them, however, their vendor failed to pull off such a critical project running on very short timelines. Axletree was introduced to TRS as a service bureau with SWIFT expertise to complete such a critical project and truncated timelines.
Axletree Implementation:
- Axletree assigned its top 3 SWIFT Experts to this project.
- Project Start to Finish timeline: 17 days!! June 12 2008-June 30 2008
- Extensive technical discussions between and Axletree teams to understand the intricacies of the project
- Axletree established credibility by demonstrating expertise in SWIFT related knowledge and superior project management skills
- Axletree team worked as an extension of the customer
- Zero support issues till date
- Recognized as the “best vendor”
Industry Category: Manufacturing Company (Chemicals)
- Annual Sales Revenue: $47 Billion
- Client Location: Texas
- Business Category: Corporate
- Axletree Client Category: Service Bureau
- Axletree Customer Since: December 2009
- Caselet Category: SWIFT Connectivity and Balance Reporting
The Company is a global manufacturer of petro and specialty chemicals. It comprises of fifteen business units, spanning 60 manufacturing facilities in 13 countries throughout the world.
Challenge: The Company had over 50 banking relationships with over 800 accounts globally to support such operations. This meant 50 different banking platforms, security encryptions and message formats leading to poor cash visibility into their bank accounts.
Solution: The Companies’ Treasury chose to streamline their banking communication process by eliminating multiple banking platforms with a single SWIFT interface. By connecting through SWIFT they initiated a more efficient communication process and lowered costs by eliminating bank interface charges, which come total approximately $15,000 per bank. Connecting through the Axletree’s SWIFT Service Bureau allowed further reduction in cost versus other service providers.
Axletree Implementation
- Team Size: Axletree 3 SWIFT Experts
- Axletree is very highly respected for our knowledge in SWIFT and our post implementation technical support.
- The Company today exchanges 1000 messages/day over the SWIFT network, this number is likely to move to 10000 messages/day.
