CV Issue 1 2018

CORPORATE VISION / Issue 1 2018 5 NEWS , A new corporate supply chain finance platform launches today, which aims to improve credit man- agement and provide additional transparency, security and flexi- bility for banks and their corpo- rate customers. The new platform is called Moni- move, and aims to enable banks to create new revenues and be able to track approved funds, optimis- ing their liquidity management in a transparent way, through an online portal. This aims to reduce com- mercial and industrial credit risk as well as associated costs. The new platform hopes to enable lower in- surance premiums and reduce bad debt on loans. The portal enables banks to ef- ficiently validate a client’s credit utilisation against their project and expense plans. Its reporting capa- bilities allow banks and their clients to make more informed decisions, whilst mitigating risk. It also ne- gates the need for banks to get involved in client-supplier relations. Monimove allows banks to in- crease their revenues from existing loans and grow their client base, whilst gaining deeper insights over time by accessing data drawn from previous projects. The new platform aims to provide banks with the reassurance that materials, services and labour committed to a project are fulfilled on time and as promised. The ini- tial proposals are captured in user agreement drafts, which banks can customise for each territory. The portal has integrated steps for suppliers to upload documents and clients to authenticate the delivery and quality of goods received elec- tronically. Banks are independent of this process until payment is needed. Monimove’s level of trans- parency also offers the bank the appropriate intervention points in the project to review how credit is being used. Monimove operates globally, with offices in China, the USA and the EU. The portal can operate from the bank’s server, or from a secure cloud environment, and all data is encrypted. Even Monimove itself will have no access to the secure data. David Allen, Chief Operations Of- ficer at Monimove, commented: “Monimove was founded to em- power banks to approach credit dif- ferently. We recognise the difficulty of the integrity of manual process- es. As with all other parts of the op- erations of banks, automation has done two things: increased the in- tegrity of the process and brought down overheads. This new meth- od of credit utilisation puts banks in the position where they can gener- ate considerable new revenue. Monimove ensures that all par- ties in the process are dealt with effectively and efficiently, and that smaller companies can compete on the same footing as larger cor- porates.” APSCo’s data, which focuses on profes- sional recruitment, reveals that demand for contractors de- creased across every one of the trade association’s core sector groups. Vacancies within engi- neering, for example, slipped by just 2%, while demand within IT, finance and marketing fell more significantly (by 9%, 9% and 24% respectively). Permanent placements up While new openings for perma- nent roles increased by just 0.4% in November 2017, the number of professionals placed that month increased by 7% year- on-year. Much of this strength can be attributed to the finance and engineering sectors (where placements increased by 19% and 6% respectively). This data coincides with reports that professional talent is becom- ing scarcer as a result of Britain’s decision to leave the EU, and suggests that employers are locking in the skills they need as a result. Fewer contractors out The overall number of contrac- tors out on assignment, mean- while, dipped by 11% during the same period. This can largely be attributed to a 33% year-on-year fall in IT professionals working on a contract basis during this time. Despite this overall dip, the number of contractors out on assignment within engineering and finance increased year-on- year in November 2017 (by 9% and 2% respectively). New Corporate Supply Chain Finance Platform To Improve Credit Management APSCo’s data reflects the 64,000 decrease in full-time self-em- ployment as reported by the Office for National Statistics in December 2017. Average salaries stable APSCo’s figures also reveal that median salaries across all pro- fessional sectors remain largely stable, decreasing by 0.9% year-on-year. This figure is char- acterised by notable fluctuations in terms of sector, with financial services and engineering, for ex- ample, recording uplifts of 3.4% and 1.5% respectively. Ann Swain, Chief Executive of APSCo comments on the findings. “This time last year, we report- ed that permanent vacancies were flat-lining amid uncertainty around Brexit. However, today it seems that employers are more concerned about an exodus of talent than a demise in demand, as was previously feared.” “As a result, businesses are moving away from the contingent workers that they leaned on in times of greater uncertainty and locking in the talent they need to thrive in 2018.” Adam Pode for Staffing Industry Analysts, adding his input. “Faced with a very uncertain world next year, companies are trying to ensure they have the talent they need by concentrating on perm placement.”