| | DEC-JAN9CIOREVIEWAPAC.COMschedules. Likewise, accounting audit will become just an authorized plug and download of those data to run the data integrity check program. Same applies for tax audit.4) It's been long that I envy Germany has the credit bureau like Schufa with credit transparency while there is limited comparable solutions in other regions. With broadly adopted new payment platforms, transaction cost relevant to credit management will be massively reduced as information asymmetry will be vastly improved, which is jolly news especially for SMEs and developing market. Meanwhile the proportional increase of cost will deter companies from delinquency behavior, which will serve as invisible hand in the market.I just depicted a Eutopia in a consolidated B2B digital payment world. Further consolidation of B2B, B2C and C2C digital payment will make it even more intelligent and versatile. I'm fairly sure it can be realized in the coming 30 years. The fact that certain markets will adopt it 5 or 10 years earlier than the others will put them in advantage in the competition. How do we get ready for it? A) Understand the risks and mitigations:· Risk of compliances: after all, it is an uncharted area to navigate. Some of the innovative payment solutions may prove to be too dynamic to the extent that it may outpace financial regulators. A regulatory framework that emerges and evolves with the technology at a global level may mitigate the risk.· Risk of monopoly: Global transaction banking generates around $1 trillion USD revenues every year. The access to and ownership of the data will be extremely powerful. Certain network topology (technology) may be able to dissipate the power (e.g. blockchain etc.) and form check-balance to prevent the service provider becoming a threat to the eco system itself.· Risk of barriers between markets: as mentioned before, if certain market lags in this trend, it'll be like the "primitive" society co-existing with the modern society. The barrier will be very high in cross trading. Furthermore, if these barriers are manually established across political territories, the transaction cost could be manipulated. e.g. It's very likely that major sovereigns will adopt different cryptocurrency standards, just like what happened in the telecom network standards, which will increase the complexity of international settlements. Global neutral NGOs with technical background like BIS could be leveraged to advocate interchangeable payment systems and harmonize standards across jurisdiction.B) Align organization for upcoming payment revolution:· Streamline and automate the internal processes, which eventually turn into cash transaction. Speed is always measured for end-to-end process. Real time payment technology does not add much value if you are still using the paper-based internal payment approval process which takes 10 days to get all the signatures.· Standardize and consolidate the usage of payment platforms. If you are using 5 different platforms, it might be wise to move to three or two to reduce costs, processing time with standardization. If you are using only one platform, it may make sense to broaden to two by proof-testing some more innovative platforms like Alipay or Paypal. To mitigate the risks, the adventure could start with domestic payment, which technically is a much easier settlement route. It also prepares you for potential transformation needed before future migration.In the settlement world, the offline payment is a term for transaction processed asynchronously and the most adopted method in B2B world. It might be the right time for corporate finance to challenge our status quo of being "offline". A global infrastructure capable of supporting instant payments will take time to be implemented
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