Innovation at Sibos: “Mobilization” of Transaction Workflows with Luup

There are two areas of corporate payments innovation that I expect to receive more attention at Sibos this year. First is e-invoicing, a process that is gaining considerable momentum as companies seek to further digitize the financial supply chain. The second is the adoption of mobile devices for treasury transactions, but also to increase efficiencies in banking operations as the workforce becomes less tethered to the office. To provide some more insight to latest developments, I thought I’d invite Georg Fasching (GF), vice president of products and solutions at Luup, a leading mobile payment solutions provider and one of our Sibos partners, to share some views.

CK: George, thank you for taking some time to discuss innovation in payments. Let’s start with e-invoicing. What are some of the adoption trends you see with e-invoicing, and corporations and banks embracing it?

GF: Thanks for having me, Colin. E-invoicing has tremendous potential, not just in the financial supply chain, but also for banks’ corporate customers. Luup has several projects in this area that are still under wraps. I can confirm though that tier-one solutions for corporations are just around the corner. A carefully designed mix of different digital access channels allows for e-invoicing to offer immense cost savings and efficiency gains. The mobile phone channel offers clear advantages for corporate transactions on the go, and initial feedback from companies on the opportunities that lie ahead is highly positive.

CK: We hear so much about mobile technology in the consumer space, but what is the role of mobile technology in the corporate payments arena?

GF: In today’s corporate world, time has become more valuable than it ever was and this trend is unlikely to cease anytime soon. The “always on” nature of mobile technology enables stakeholders in the corporate payments arena to maximise every second to its fullest. Mobile devices featuring Luup’s white-labeled services enable users to operate time-critical processes anytime and anywhere. We innovate so that mobile technology can really address the many pain-points corporates currently face and offerwide-ranging support for those mobile devices that most companies use.

Leading mobile technology and customer-centric features, such as reliability, ease of use, scalability and banking-grade security, as offered by Luup, bring new opportunities to the corporate payments arena.

CK: Are there corporate banking solutions that readers should be aware of?

GF: Luup’s Corporate Banking Solution for example features dedicated products that deliver a range of value propositions - from removing the cost of cash handling, to virtualising operations and boosting efficiencies.

CK: Certainly operational improvement is a big issue. How else can mobile devices be used to generate operational efficiencies?

GF: At Sibos, Luup is launching a remote authorisation product, which is another product from Luup’s Mobile Corporate Banking Solution. Such innovation is set to bring even greater operational changes than the electronic channel brought. Financial institutions and their corporate customers will benefit from revenue generation and cost reduction opportunities across multiple business areas.

It enables corporate banks, and the corporations they support, to move their staff into the modern era. Gone are the days of paperwork, chasing after signatures, and waiting days or weeks on approvals because someone in the chain is travelling and has no access to the current process. By using their mobile device, requestors and approvers are empowered to act anytime and anywhere on requests such as purchase orders, travel or budget requests, payment runs, or any other otherwise bureaucratic and time-consuming business process. The common feedback from head treasurers and executives in large corporations proves that a powerful tool such as mobile based remote authorisations is an immense time saver, exposing countless operational efficiency gains.

CK: That sounds like an integration challenge. How do you address that?

GF: Early on in the product development life cycle we identified the potential integration challenges and worked hard to assess potential solutions. Luup’s decision to leverage the Microsoft BizTalk Server not only makes designing products easier and mapping business processes for our remote authorisations product efficient, but also helps to ease integration into a wide range of different systems. In addition to Microsoft components, Luup is for example integrating TEMENOS T24 core-banking components for a banking-grade overall service and streamlined integration with core banking systems.

CK: I see Luup has taken a complete view of the mobile enterprise experience and understands the user experience, but also the complexity of multichannel integration. Georg, I appreciate you sharing your insights into these innovative technologies, and look forward to a successful Sibos.

GF: Thank you Colin. We look forward to demonstrating our services on the Microsoft stand. As they say, ‘meet you at Sibos’.

To learn more, please visit Microsoft and Luup at Sibos in Amsterdam on stand C413, or contact Georg directly on Georg.Fasching@luup.com directly to make an appointment.