An Interview With Our CEO – Richard Cummings
A few words from our CEO – Richard Cummings.
What might people find interesting about your professional background prior to Cashfac?
Having been in the global banking and financial markets for over 25 years I’ve been fortunate enough to work with businesses at a truly global level. I spent 14 years living and working in Asia, as well in the US and many parts of Europe and my roles have taken me around many parts of the financial markets, including investment banks, retail banks and software companies.
I’ve worked with a number of the team at Cashfac for over a decade including our Managing Director of Global Business. Over a seven-year period we grew a company of a similar size to Cashfac into a global leader in the reconciliations space with over 38% market share.
A lot of that work was about changing the engagement with the customer, ensuring that we understood the drivers for customer success and ensuring that we provided the best service with regard to skills, domain knowledge, technology and commercial flexibility to create a win-win scenario for both customer and vendor.
What is your vision for the Cashfac business going forward?
To create a truly global software company and a world leader in cash management technology and services for our banking re-sale channels and our direct customer base. Coupled with this, to create a business that can deliver true scale through its global footprint, through the volume and variety of its customer base and through process and technology excellence.
What do you see as the main areas of growth for the Cashfac business over the next 12-18 months?
There are three key focuses for us as a business through the coming year.
First, is our focus on our existing bank channels to ensure maximum success and drive revenues and profitability for those banking partners and for Cashfac. Second, is our focus on new bank channels in a greater variety of global locations; leveraging our success in Australia and other parts of Asia as well as repeating the success we’ve had in the UK through our relationships with four of the five top UK domiciled banks. Finally, our focus will also be to service our direct corporate customers that require more bespoke solutions beyond the bank channel remit and may require multi-bank capabilities.
Cash management is an increasingly important part of both bank and corporate businesses. How do you think it will develop in the coming years?
The focus on transparency, control and compliance will continue for a number of years to come, driven by a number of key factors, including regulation; the need to focus far more acutely on payables and receivables processes; and the need for firms to have better control of cash.
The old adage that ‘cash is king’ really is at the forefront of people’s minds. The need to understand your cash position on an immediate intra-day basis, on a near term basis, and beyond, will increasingly be a key focus for organizations in using their capital in more effective and efficient ways. Additionally, ensuring that the use of that capital complies with relevant regulatory frameworks is something that firms can’t overlook.
What are the main issues affecting Cashfac’s clients?
There is a very real and global trend throughout the financial markets, particularly in the banking sector, to deliver services that are specifically tailored to customer needs; solutions that are easy to use, can be quickly implemented and scaled, and provide a level of service that is brand enhancing.
Technology can be the facilitator here in enabling the automation and acceleration of complex cash processes for a bank, and their customers, treasury and cash management operations.
How is Cashfac working with clients to address some of these issues?
We are working with our strategic partners to deliver solutions that are tailored to specific industry verticals that have a fast time to market and intuitive user interface. Watch this space…
