Transaction Banking Academy (TBA) has signed an agreement with LearnUpon, the Dublin-based Learning Management System (LMS) platform, to support TBA's development of learning portals for its clients in banking and financial services.

Founded in early 2012 by a team of industry professionals, LearnUpon is one of the fastest growing LMS vendors on the market. TBA will use LearnUpon's platform to bring together e-learning with its live instructor training for global banks and corporations.

Transaction Banking Academy tutors were lucky enough to spend a week at Campus BBVA in Madrid (above), delivering the sixth annual Treasury and Working Capital course for a group of BBVA team members from around the world.

The five-day course covered every aspect of transaction banking, including the fundamentals of regulation for transaction bankers, which was delivered as five online modules for the first time through Transaction Banking Academy's new learning portal.

The course is  led by three Transaction Banking Academy tutors and includes workshops, case studies and project work based around a realistic treasury RFP from a  'virtual company' created especially for this course.

Transaction Banking Academy has launched the first online training course on its new learning portal. The five-module introduction to regulation for transaction bankers is being delivered as a private programme to a group of more than 30 learners from a global bank.

The course includes interactive tests, videos, downloadable support materials and certificates of completion, and takes five hours in total to complete.

'We've been planning to launch digital training for some time and we're very happy to be working with a technology partner to offer a complete Learning Management System (LMS) which can be branded for our client banks, who can use it as if it were their own, but with our support', said Mike Hewitt, operations director of Transaction Banking Academy. 'This first five-module course covers regulation, but we'll be adding courses and modules on more than 20 other topics over the coming months'.

Transaction Banking Academy is already working with a major African bank to develop new modules for its branded LMS and is planning a wider launch of the Portal later in 2017.

​For more information contact mike hewitt mikeh@transactionbankingacademy.com

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The rumours of the death of cash have been greatly exaggerated, writes TBA tutor Edith Rigler - there are plenty of reasons why cash will be king for a long time to come

That the future of cash has become hotly debated there can be no doubt. Many observers predict the demise of notes and coins as an outdated and obsolete mode of payment. For example, at last year’s World Economic Forum summit in Davos, Deutsche Bank’s chief executive officer (CEO), John Cryan, observed that as cash was both costly and inefficient, it would no longer exist in another 10 years. Notes and coins would disappear. Technology would triumph.

Transaction Banking Academy tutors recently led four intensive days of training in Jakarta, Indonesia, for Bank Rakyat Indonesia (BRI). The Academy's two day course on The Fundamentals of International Cash and Liquidity Management was followed by the two-day Trade and Supply Chain Finance Masterclass, helping BRI bankers better understand the needs of corporate clients and current best practice in global transaction banking. Resky Irianawati, general manager, international business, at BRI, said the training had had a 'significant impact' on the bank's development.

"We were delighted to able to develop these courses for BRI," said Diana Henderson, managing director of Transaction Banking Academy. "They are part of a rollout of our services in the Asia Pacific region, with new tutors and courses specifically developed to address the needs of regional clients."

When Canadian software developer Azur Group started to develop a product for the corporate treasury market, they knew they needed to understand how treasurers worked. Transaction Banking academy was able to offer a bespoke course for their developers and sales people based on our popular 'Day in The Life of  Corporate Treasurer'. Our expert tutor spent three days in Azur's home city of Montreal, working with the team to ensure they fully understood how treasurers work - and how they think about software that might help. 

“It was clear from the moment we did the calls to plan the course that the tutor, was very knowledgeable in treasury management, said Rehan Siddiqui, team lead at the Azur Group. "The training material was well prepared and the whole experience was very interactive. I highly recommend the services we received from Transaction Banking Academy."

FirstBank of Nigeria recently turned to Transaction Banking Academy (TBA) when it needed to bring 30 bankers up to date on the latest techniques in international treasury. We developed a bespoke course based on our International Cash Management programme and our expert tutor spent a week in Lagos, Nigeria, running the course, which included assessments and certification. "We were especially pleased to be able to develop and deliver this course, as it is our first move into Africa", said TBA founder Diana Henderson. "Partly as a result of this, we are already in talks with another major African bank to develop and deliver training in no fewer than five African countries."

Transaction Banking Academy Tutor, Edith Rigler, was a panellist at the European Payments Regulation conference in London, in her capacity as an associate at the Payments Advisory Group. Rigler, a leading expert on payments and regulation, pointed out that the development of Blockchain for payments may end up more fragmented than many people are hoping.

“It’s hard to get 20 countries to agree anything, let alone to get the entire world,” she said. “Is it feasible that global all banks and regulators will agree? The speculation is that we’ll get regional clubs, and that will help to spur competition. But there will also be fragmentation, and banks will have to decide which clubs to join. In some ways, that means we would be back in the same situation as we are with the ACHs.”

Edith teaches regulation and payments for Transaction Banking Academy, including the one-day Introduction to Banking Regulation. 

By Whitman E. Knapp, chairman, GTBInsights LLC

Sibos 2015 provided a unique opportunity to understand the significant issues driving the transaction banking world.  Blockchain technology dominated the conversation. Rarely has one subject so dominated a Sibos.  There was standing room only at the Innotribe meeting, and every session covering payments or trade included a discussion of the use of blockchain technology, whether it was on the agenda or not.

So what were the five key take-aways for wholesale transaction banking from this outpouring of interest?      

By Edith Rigler 
Senior Tutor, Transaction Banking Academy

Open a financial services publication or attend a payments conference and you are confronted with “instant”,“ immediate”, “real-time”, or “faster” payments. What is this all about? 

For decades, making a payment took time … and often quite a lot of time. Whether a payment arrived at its beneficiary the next day, or after three days, or a week depended on the country, whether it was a domestic payment or had to travel across borders, and how many banks were involved in the middle. In some countries payments moved faster than in others. The consumer had no say in the matter. Short of choosing a large-value RTGS system with immediate finality, the consumer was dependent on his country´s ACH system and its clearing cycle.