Panellists: Elena Gomez | Global Instant Payments Head, Citi

John Walsh | Head of Domestic Payments & Receivables EMEA

Topics discussed included:

1. The Instant Payments landscape across the world

2. Key features and emerging innovations

3. Top live use cases

4. Key advantages and considerations for corporates

5. The European Landscape

6. Instant Payments and Open Banking

Members can view slides from this webinar HERE

The IACT together with the ACCA Leinster panel delivered a joint session “Talking Treasury” with hosts Jason Murphy and Aoife Glancy.  The key objective was to bring together finance and treasury professionals and discuss the key issues and trends in Treasury in 2021.  

A big thank you to panellists Dara Kavanagh, Director in EY, John Moclair, Head of Customer Group at Bank of Ireland and Susan McCarthy, Group Funding Manager at ESB for a lively and insightful discussion.

Speakers:

• James Pomeroy, Global Economist, HSBC
• Chris Hare, European Economist, HSBC
• Shanella Rajanayagam, Trade Economist, HSBC

James Pomeroy gave an update on the Global Economy with Chris Hare and Shanella Rajanayagam discussing trade issues and broader economic consequences of Brexit (UK, EU and Ireland).

Speaker: Ronan Clifford, Treasury Director EMEA Corporate Treasury, Honeywell

The past few months have focussed many Treasurers on the need to automate aspects of the Treasury function and look for digital innovation opportunities.

In this webinar, Ronan Clifford from Honeywell shared some of his experiences in driving automation and insights from various initiatives undertaken through his career.

This webinar was co-hosted by Irish Association of Corporate Treasurers (IACT) in association with the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants (CIMA). 

John Fahey, Senior Economist, AIB provided a review of the global economy and financial markets and outlook for 2021 during these times of heightened uncertainty.

Our IACT2020 virtual treasury summit has been heralded a huge success, albeit our first annual conference delivered virtually.

With 217 signed up delegates on November 18th last, we had an incredible almost 60% representing corporates.  

We were especially delighted to see a total of 198 delegates dialled in to join us on the day.  

Many of these delegates engaged in the opportunities to ask questions, add comments and a special thanks to all our delegates who engaged in our IACT survey questions providing us with invaluable feedback information for next year’s planning, programme of events, topics etc. 

One to one networking can be a challenge for many during normal times but it can be especially challenging, if not impossible, during a virtual event.  However, on this occasion we were particularly happy to see successful engagement with our online networking opportunities.  

8 delegates achieved the maximum of 200 points on the leaderboard with Cian Butler/ESB in first position winning the coveted €150 wines and chocolates hamper.  Cian nominated the Jack & Jill Foundation as the deserving charity and we have already issued them a cheque for €1,000 on behalf of our IACT2020 delegates. 

We especially thank J.P. Morgan’s Sara Castelhano, HSBC’s James Pomeroy and Barclays’ John Shinkins for their invaluable contribution to our plenary sessions this year.

We acknowledge the skilful work of our event chair for this year’s event, Marc Coleman at Octavian (see photo below) who kept us on our toes and on track throughout!!  Final thanks goes to all contributors in the discussion panel ably chaired by Hewlett Packard’s Fiona Hughes and all our speakers in the three breakout discussion rooms.  

Thank you to all of you who came on our virtual journey with us this year; without you, our webinars and our virtual summit wouldn’t have been possible. 

This IBOR session, took place on Wednesday 21 October from 9am – 10am.

The event was hosted in conjunction with EY and Bank of Ireland and it focused on the following:

► Kevin Daly, President of the Irish Association of Corporate Treasurers and Assistant Treasurer with James Hardie Industries plc: Introduction

► Ken Phillips, Director, Financial Services, EY: Overview of IBOR Transition: Background, timelines, transition strategies and accounting impacts.

► Barry Moran, Irish Ambassador of the Euro Risk Free Rate working group: A European perspective on benchmark reform

► Q&A

This webinar gave an overview of ESG, the growing area of sustainable finance and how and why companies are developing and embedding corporate sustainability into the core of their operations.

Speakers were Sean MacHale, Head of Institutional Strategy, ESG and Growth, Bank of Ireland and Paul Harris, Senior Dealer, Corporate & Institutional Sales, Markets & Treasury, Bank of Ireland.

This event was organised by IACT in conjunction with Bank of Ireland.

Since March the world has seen unprecedented levels of change impacting all corners of the globe. Corporates and institutions have been forced to find new and inventive ways of working. With uncertainty remaining over how many months these conditions will last, challenges in crisis liquidity management practices that were not foreseen earlier this year, are now part of daily Treasury activity.

As the challenges of a change in operating models and significant economic headwinds stress capacity & the forecasting models we expected to use this year, the role of the treasurer is once again being stretched across strategic planning and day-to-day liquidity management.

Johnny Grimes, Global Head of Liquidity & FX Products of Deutsche Bank  discussed the impact of the new normal facing global corporations & their treasury departments, and shared examples of the strategies and key learnings their clients are sharing with them in the current environment.

This event was organized by IACT in conjunction with Deutsche Bank.

How does the COVID-19 Pandemic impact corporate ratings, what are impacts on specific sectors? How are the banking counterparts of corporates impacted (from an investment perspective)? What are topics rating agencies need to know about to assess corporate credit and sectorial impact? In this Webinar Fitch Ratings shared their insights and there was an opportunity for Q&A.

This event was organized by IACT in conjunction with Fitch Ratings

• How Fitch approached corporate ratings
• Initial assumptions for 2021
• Actions so far, and what future actions are dependent on
• What are rating agencies asking issuers
• Banks in the pandemic – rating actions and credit availability

Speakers
Richard Hunter, Global Head of Corporate Ratings, Fitch Ratings
Christian Scarafia, Head of Western European Banks, Fitch Ratings

Slides from this webinar are available to view in the Members area of the website