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

Presenter:  

Nicolas Christiaen CEO & Co-founder Cashforce

• Setting up a Cash flow forecasting process  
• Artificial Intelligence: AI-powered Cash forecasting
• Working Capital analytics
• Quick wins to handle the current crisis
• Case studies        

Go to the members area Members-only content to view slides from this webinar 

Speaker: Neil Gray, Regional Manager, Corporates Business – UK & Ireland, SWIFT

Topics discussed included:

(i) SWIFT for Corporates: enabling corporates to communicate with their multiple banking partners (e.g. for payments, treasury and cash management) through one single, standardised and secure channel

(ii) SWIFT Global Payment Initiative (GPI) for Corporates: improving the corporate-to-bank experience in the world of international payments and collections;

(iii) SWIFT Know Your Customer (KYC) for Corporates: helping corporates to simplify the maintenance and process of exchanging KYC data with banks via the cloud based SWIFT KYC registry platform

(iv) Alternative payment platforms using Application Programming Interface (API) and digital payments

(v) Case studies / best practice and discussion of use of payment/communication platforms for corporates

The Irish Association of Corporate Treasurers (IACT) and the Irish Tax Institute (ITI) co-hosted this tax update on Tuesday 3 March.

Speakers Harry Harrison & Fiona Carney of PwC, and Kevin Norton, Deloitte discussed:

• Hybrids – what treasurers need to know
• DAC 6 – what treasurers need to know
• Transfer Pricing – a practical perspective

VIEW PRESENTATIONS

Major consumer brands are increasingly creating online stores selling directly to their consumers.

J.P. Morgan speakers Sara Castelhano – MD, EMEA Head of Core Cash Management, and Brian Gaynor – Head of Product and Strategy, EU Merchant Services, discussed the key drivers behind this evolution, technology and emerging banking needs.

Steven Swientozielskyj, Immediate Past President CIMA, looked at the impact of the digital world on treasury activities and the skills required to embrace this change and the impact on companies and people.

Tram Anh Nguyen, Centre for Finance, Technology and Entrepreneurship, focused on how organizational transformation requires people transformation and the biggest challenges to this transformation. 

This was followed by a panel discussion chaired by Caroline Stockman, ACT CEO. Questions were posed from Dublin, New York and Edinburgh.  This was followed by a networking reception at each location.  The Dublin event was facilitated by Arthur Cox.

Dr. Loretta O’Sullivan, Group Chief Economist with Bank of Ireland, provided an outlook for the Irish economy in 2020 and the international environment including Brexit, trade tensions and the international tax landscape.  Loretta’s insight into consumer, business and investment confidence survey’s highlighted the positive outlook while also highlighting potential risks and constraints within the economy.

HSBC presented to our southern region members at the recent Roundtable in the River Lee Hotel in Cork.

IACT and CIMA co-hosted their annual Southern Region Winter Economic Briefing and Outlook on 26th November in Cork.

Dr Loretta O’Sullivan, Group Chief Economist of Bank of Ireland gave a talk on the economic outlook for 2020.

A huge success again this year with 230 delegates signed up for this year’s 2019 conference This was up more than 15% on last year’s event, making it the biggest attendee level ever.  The audience was made up of an almost 50/50 split of treasurers and service providers and the 2019 conference speakers were again outstanding this year.  

http://www.corporatetreasury.ie