A critical pilot last year proved electronic bank account management (eBAM) can work in the real world, and that has set off a wave of activity as banks and treasuries position themselves for a leap forward in the automation of bank-corporate communication.

"Banks now are really motivated to offer eBAM," reports Stacy Rosenthal, head of corporate and payment strategy at SWIFT Americas.

For the critical stress test that showed eBAM was ready for prime time, Bank of New York Mellon recruited three corporate clients–General Electric, Swiss Re and an anonymous New England technology company. It brought SWIFT in as the message clearing network, since GE had a direct relationship to SWIFT, while Swiss Re and the other corporate had SWIFT linkages through their service bureaus.