The bills that banks send to companies are complicated—socomplicated that various vendors offer software for checking bankstatements to see whether the fees a company was charged are inline with its agreement with the bank. But companies can't use thatsoftware unless their banks provide them with electronicstatements, and getting such statements from many overseas banks isstill a struggle.

In a session at the 2015 Association for Financial Professionalsconference, consulting firm Redbridge Debt & Treasury Advisorysurveyed attendees about bank e-billing. Of the 48 surveyparticipants who use international banks, just 16% receiveelectronic statements that follow the TWIST BSB global bank-billingstandard.

But those corporate treasury practitioners are interested ingetting standardized electronic statements: 51.4% of those surveyedsaid that whether an international bank made such a statementavailable would definitely influence their decision on which bankto use, while another 37.8% said it would probably influence theirdecision.

U.S. Banks Lead the Way in E-Billing

In the United States, it's common for companies to get theirbank bills in an electronic format.

Robert Blair, a partner at Vick Consulting Group, saidelectronic billing has been available from many U.S. banks forclose to 20 years. In the U.S., “the usage is far more extensiveand the support for it is far more extensive, just in terms of thenumber of banks that have deployed,” he said.

On the international front, TWIST, a not-for-profit that workson XML-based standards for the financial supply chain, has a groupthat is developing and promoting TWIST BSB as a billing standardfor global banks' services. (U.S. banks often use a differentstandard, EDI 822).

Blair, the editor of the group's TWIST BSB Newsletter, said the differences in banks' practicesfrom country to country make the adoption of a global standardchallenging.

“In some banking markets, it's uncommon to charge for services.In some banking markets, it's common to charge for services butdeduct them immediately from the bank account,” he said. “Thatmakes it just a bit more challenging for certain banks in certainmarkets to fully adopt and fully embrace the standards.”

Banks have little motivation to provide companies with moretransparent billing, Blair noted, since their corporate customersmay turn around and question some of the charges.

That means it's up to companies to push banks to make electronicbilling happen. “More corporate advocacy and pressure, and theinclusion of questions about BSB capability in RFPs and RFIs bycorporates, would make a material difference,” Blair said.

He pointed to the success of corporate advocacy back in the2004–2006 period, when GE led an effort among U.S. corporates to demand electronic billing frominternational banks.

That effort led to the creation of the TWIST BSB standard, Blairsaid. “It's conceptually the same as EDI 822, but it differs inthat it's more modern and more capable” and can support multiplecurrencies and value-added taxes, he said.

Progress has been made. The TWIST BSB Newsletter shows thenumber of international banks providing BSB billing statements rosefrom 12 in 2012 to 16 earlier this year.

Treating Banks Like Other Vendors

Redbridge, which traditionally provided outsourced monitoring ofcompanies' bank statements, recently rolled out asoftware-as-a-service (SaaS) bank account analysis software,Hawkeye BSB.

Bridget Meyer, a senior director at Redbridge, argued thatcompanies should be monitoring their banks just as they do theirother suppliers.

Such an effort could lead to savings. Companies that use accountanalysis software should be able to cut their bank fees by 10%,Meyer said.

She cited a Redbridge study of 100 different account statementssubmitted to Hawkeye; the software's analysis found 242 errors inthose 100 statements. “Some were as little as $1; others werethousands of dollars,” Meyer said.

Meyer said the current level of interest rates is fuelinginterest in taking a closer look at bank statements, given thatmany U.S. companies have relied on their earnings credit rate tocover their bank fees. “When interest rates are high in the U.S.,people don't pay transaction fees because they're earning suchgreat interest rates that that's offsetting the cost of transactionbanking,” she said. “But now, in a low-interest-rate environment,companies are taking a hard look at their transaction costs becausethey're having to pay for them.”

Meyer also cited “momentum” overseas and noted that Germany haspassed a law mandating that vendors provide bills electronically,which corporates hope will encourage electronic billing by banksthere.

European companies are less interested in analyzing their bankstatements to be sure the banks are charging them accurately thanthey are in using the information to get a clearer view of theirbanking relationships, she said.

“Most of the time, the No. 1 concern for them is visibility,”Meyer said. “So when they're making their share of the walletdecisions, they have something to talk to the bank about.”