Building Trust How Banks are Attracting and Retaining Business Clients With Institutional Money Fund Portals

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1 Bilding Trst How Banks are Attracting and Retaining Bsiness Clients With Instittional Money Fnd Portals By George Hagerman, Fonder and CEO, CacheMatrix Holdings, LLC

2 C ompetitive pressres are driving innovation throghot the banking indstry. From strategic partnerships to powerfl new technologies and novel service initiatives, banks are breaking new grond in an all-ot effort to captre, serve and retain clients. Competition is especially fierce in the area of instittional money market fnds a market that has exploded in recent years. Over the past five years, CFOs have been stashing cash at a record rate and billions in repatriated assets have entered company coffers throgh the American Jobs Creation Act of These factors, copled with strong earnings and restrained capital spending, have left corporate balance sheets in great shape. And with ncertainty in the markets and cation among CFOs, money fnd balances are likely to stay high and cash will contine to be king in Corporate America. According to imoneynet, a provider of information on money market mtal fnds, instittional money market fnds accont for as mch as 25 percent of the $5 trillion in bsiness short-term assets. Banks are competing among themselves and with mtal fnd companies for this massive piece of the instittional money fnd marketplace. The contest is especially fierce for banks with proprietary instittional money fnds that are competing against a growing array of instittional fnd offerings. Page 1 Deepen Corporate Banking Relationships A key condit to captring these assets is the corporate treasrer. According to a Jly 2005 article in Bank Technology News, treasrers are a vital link for bank corporate bsiness becase their needs can span a wide range of banking prodcts. Keeping them happy often hinges on saving them time. One way to keep treasrers happy, noted the BTN article, is making daily money management dties as easy as possible. By doing so, banks can deepen corporate banking relationships. Technology becomes a key factor in a mtal soltion, especially as banks compete to win and retain clients. Banks are doing this by installing web-based platforms that aggregate money market fnds throgh Internet portals. Corporate treasrers, most of whom trade money market fnds daily to optimize short-term retrns on their cash holdings, can se the sites instead of trading separately or directly with each of the fnds, said BTN. The strategy has worked. A growing nmber of corporate treasrers are trning to instittional money market fnd portals to invest their cash in money fnds. Like the mtal fnd spermarkets that revoltionized the eqity fnd indstry in the mid-80s, the advent of money market portals provides CFOs with a choice of competitive fnds and a convenient, single-sorce platform for managing them. By having access to competing money market fnds, company treasry officers have a choice of top performing fnds. While exact nmbers of cstomers sing money fnd portals is not available, their ranks are growing. According to a recent article in CFO.com, portals provide treasrers with access to a range of online trading tools, as well as access to crrent portfolio holdings performance, prospectses, wire information, fnd applications, and more withot leaving the centralized Web site. Frther, portals provide a neat paper trail for managers who are reqired to comply with the internal-controls docmentation provisions of Section 404 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act.

3 The portal helps me research, trade and monitor my money fnd acconts with effectiveness and ease. It pts the whole nine yards at my fingertips, and that makes or treasry operations mch more effective and efficient. Bob DiAntonio Investment Analyst Arbella Insrance Grop Deliver What Treasrers are Seeking Here are six reasons why corporate treasrers are integrating a money fnd portal into treasry operations: Time Savings/Speed of Exection One-Stop Shop Simplification/vendor consolidation Cost Savings Investment Transparency Sarbanes Oxley Compliance. Time Savings/Speed of Exection The old chestnt, time is money describes sccinctly one of the main reasons treasry officers are plgging into portals. For Stella Msso, a treasry officer at LSI Logic, the time savings benefits were obvios. The prospect of ctting trading time by more than 90 percent and eliminating the blizzard of phone calls, faxes and paperwork she had to process on a daily basis drew her to the web portal. LSI, a leading semicondctor designer in Milpitas, Calif., has strict investment criteria and diversification rles that reqire Msso to research, monitor and trade a nmber of different money fnds each day. Before sing the portal technology, she wold typically spend more than an hor every morning processing paper faxing a plethora of prchase and redemption orders to separate fnd companies, and placing wire transactions to fnd new prchases. Additional time was spent doing the research and monitoring of her acconts. With the portal, she now logs on, checks her money fnd investments, compares yields on other fnds, and selects fnds that meet her investment criteria. All told, she completes her daily investments in abot five mintes. It s a click of a btton for s, and that saves me time, said Msso. That way, I can focs more time and energy on other responsibilities. One-Stop Shop For Bob DiAntonio, Investment Analyst for Arbella Insrance Grop, an insrance provider in the New England region, sing a money fnd portal is akin to shopping at a spermarket. Portal technology pts everything research, trading and monitoring of fnds nder one roof. With a single platform, one log-on and access to all of the tools and information he needs to manage his money fnd holdings, DiAntonio likes the combination of having access to a range of qality investments with the convenience of making those investments from a single, centralized sorce. The portal helps me research, trade and monitor my money fnd acconts with effectiveness and ease, said DiAntonio. It pts the whole nine yards at my fingertips, and that makes or treasry operations mch more effective and efficient. Page 2

4 We have been able to streamline reporting down to one statement for all of the transactions we make in all of the fnds we by and sell. It s a great adit trail for s. Stella Msso Treasry Officer LSI Logic, Inc. Simplification/vendor consolidation Portals offer another benefit, says DiAntonio. The system, which ses an omnibs model for clearing and settling trades, DiAntonio fills ot a single application that provides him with access to all 35 fnds on the MoneyMarket Trader platform. Before, if we wanted to add a fnd to or portfolio, we wold have to contact the fnd company and then rn it throgh or legal and finance for de diligence, he said. With the single application, we can pt or money to work more qickly. Cost Savings Treasry officers can reap cost benefits in three ways. By consolidating all trading activity into a single wire transfer, sers of portals eliminate the daily barrage of mltiple wires, thereby saving the $10-$20 charge per wire. The time savings aspect of portals also translates into administrative cost savings. By redcing the time spent on faxing, wiring and phoning associated with processing trades, corporate treasrers now have extra time to concentrate on more strategic matters and higher-vale work. Finally, portal sers can positively impact the lost opportnity associated with being in a low-yielding fnd. Investment Transparency Portals also provide direct and transparent access to a variety of fnd information, which treasrers say helps them identify the right investments at the right time, enabling them to optimize money fnd investments. The comprehensive and consolidated instittional money market fnd research data provided on many portals allows treasrers to isolate key indstry data and streamline analysis of leading instittional money market fnds at a glance. For example, portal research tools allow treasry managers to cstomize data based on investment need and reliable, independent assessments from the indstry s most respected rating agencies. They can also be sed to monitor assets nder management and average weighted matrity of fnds on watch lists; compare expense ratios of specific instittional money fnds; and filter for key investment criteria. This cstomized research capability appealed to Arbella s DiAntonio. Since Arbella is an insrance grop, DiAntonio can only invest in fnds that have been approved by the National Association of Insrance Commissioners. I can filter fnds so that I can compare NAIC-approved fnds only, he said. The site gives yo the right information to help do the de diligence necessary. Added Msso: Having all of the information online and in one place makes it easier to do the research we need to do to make effective investing decisions. It s mch more of an apples to apples comparison. Page 3

5 The CacheMatrix private label soltion is a straight-forward, cost-effective way to give yor bank the competitive advantage to attract new corporate clients and retain the ones yo already have. George Hagerman Fonder and CEO CacheMatrix Sarbanes Oxley Compliance With its strict controls over financial reporting, Section 404 of Sarbanes Oxley (SOX) raises the bar on treasry operations, according to Robert T. Mayer, Director of Treasry Risk Management at Protiviti, Inc., a leading international provider of independent internal adit and bsiness and technology risk conslting services. In or analysis, we see nmeros isses faced by firms seeking to comply with Sarbanes from otdated or limited policies and procedres, to a lack of acceptable controls and risk identification, to heavy se and reliance on manal data and spreadsheets, said Mayer. All of this spports the need to strengthen controls, enhance processes and manage costs. Portals can help companies meet several SOX reqirements for the treasry risk fnction. With limited access and a single password, portals provide a centralized, secre process for treasry fnctions. Becase it is highly atomated, a portal can also help maintain formal and crrent treasry policies, procedres and athorization matrixes and enhance process effectiveness and control. And portals provide a clean paper trail. We have been able to streamline reporting down to one statement for all of the transactions we make in all of the fnds we by and sell, said Msso. It s a great adit trail for s. Or internal aditors have had no isses and that s always a good sign. The CacheMatrix Soltion As yor bank looks to bild yor bsiness by strengthening relationships with corporate treasrers, or money market trading technology provides yo with the right soltion. CacheMatrix s portal is a trnkey technology that enables corporate treasry clients to research, trade and monitor their money market acconts throgh a single sorce yor bank. This saves yor corporate clients time and money, giving them the opportnity to concentrate on more strategic banking initiatives, as well as to diversify their access to fnds. Yo get what yo need a more effective tool to retain clients and generate new streams of revene from the competition, bilt by a team of professionals with decades of experience on instittional money fnd trading desks. Additionally, notes Bank Technology News, these same corporate treasrers will likely seek advice and services on more complex investment decisions from the instittion providing the portal. We invite yo to pt the indstry s leading portal technology to the test. Call s at , or s at info@cachematrix.com for more information Page 4

6 Abot George Hagerman George Hagerman is Fonder and CEO of CacheMatrix Holdings, LLC, a leading provider of instittional money fnd portal technology to banks and mtal fnd companies. George has had a distingished 19-year career in the instittional money fnds bsiness. Prior to fonding CacheMatrix, George led money fnd sales, marketing and distribtion efforts for The Boston Company, Fidelity Investments, Lehman Brothers, and CS First Boston. In 1994, he developed the distribtion platform for the Jans instittional money market fnds, creating a site of instittional money market fnds from inception that grew to more than $19 billion in assets. Abot CacheMatrix CacheMatrix provides a trnkey portal technology enabling banks and other financial services firms to offer its corporate treasry clients access to one-stop, online trading and monitoring of a marketplace of top instittional money fnds. For more information, visit Page 5

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