JP Morgan Payments has introduced a cross-border liquidity solution in Saudi Arabia, enabling customers to connect to liquidity pools in London and other cities across the globe.
The service will aim to offer clients with a pipeline to link their balances to liquidity structures globally.
The primary features of the product include enhancing liquidity across Saudi Arabia, automating cash consolidation from different accounts into a single account, and increasing connections to offshore structures.
By enhancing liquidity transfer payments, the solution intends to enable firms to reduce idle balances and use internal cash more efficiently, thus optimizing deficit balances and eliminating overdraft fees, explained JP Morgan Payments global head of liquidity and account solutions, Lori Schwartz.
JP Morgan’s senior country officer for Saudi Arabia, Bader Alamoudi, noted that given the fast-paced financial and tech development taking place in the country, the product intends to match the ambitions/objectives of the nation as set in the Kingdom’s Financial Services Development Program by diversifying the area’s economy and solidifying its connections to offshore companies.
Alamoudi added:
“Our solution helps treasurers achieve digital transformation and provides them with a comprehensive, inter-connected and efficient cash management structure.”
He thinks that the solution should benefit Saudi Arabia in the long-term by easing pressure built up during the COVID-19 crisis and lower risk and uncertainty via automation processes.
The Liquidity Cross Border Sweep follows the local sweeping capability product that JP Morgan introduced in the area in Q4 2021.
Schwartz added:
“Our domestic capabilities were the first phase of our liquidity sweeping offering in the region, allowing clients to concentrate funds locally and within Saudi Arabia. The enablement of cross-border sweeping, now further allows clients to connect their structures and liquidity outside of Saudi Arabia, allowing clients to extract the benefits of visibility, optimisation and control of their liquidity globally.”
On the future of JP Morgan Payments in the area, Alamoudi said that the digitization processes and real-time payments capability that the solution brings to transactions will enhance the open banking landscape of the region.
He also mentioned:
“We are also seeing the need for comprehensive cash management solutions that support the integration of back office systems and innovative products that cover a regional network with global connectivity.”
Shahrokh Moinian, EMEA head of payments, said:
“EMEA forms a crucial part of the firm’s Payments growth agenda. It’s an exciting place to be right now with a huge growth opportunity. We are investing and continue to commercialize our disruptive technology investments, which have been a game changer in a number of areas. Underpinning all of this are our efforts in modernizing our platforms and investing in attracting and developing talent in the regions.”
JP Morgan Payments is developing its business in the evolving EMEA landscape, having tapped new heads of client service and implementations and sales leadership in the region with banking professionals Brook Johnson and Malika Beri respectively.