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Implied volatility in the FX markets has fallen to levels last seen before the eruption of the financial crisis, a fact that might concern investors who witnessed the violent price action in 2008.

Bank payment obligations (BPOs) are gaining traction, albeit slowly, but bankers argue more thought is needed about how to incentivize buyers to use this new payment mechanism as a means of settling their trade transactions.

A Fortune 100 global technology company had complex commercial and inter-company flows. Treasury management functions were dispersed over numerous locations, multiple cash pools and stand-alone bank accounts, with no overarching liquidity structure. The result was poor cash access and utilization, added to eroding interest margins and process inefficiencies. The company used Citi Treasury Diagnostics to benchmark its treasury operations and gain insights on opportunities for improvement. To centralize control and visibility, Citi recommended a global cash pool for G3 and other major currencies; global cash aggregation with automated end-of-day zero balance sweeps ‘with the sun’ and ‘against the sun’ – moving liquidity positions to the appropriate concentration header account as the trading day moves – and, in addition, a multi-currency notional pool. Citi also assisted the company in defining a path towards consolidation of multiple finance companies and pool headers into a single offshore in-house bank (IHB) to manage centrally all liquidity outside the US; and in establishing a full-service inter-company netting centre within the IHB.

The emerging world is doomed to capital-flow instability unless the Fed takes into account financial volatility in high-growth regions in its monetary policy, Tharman Shanmugaratnam, finance minister of Singapore, tells Euromoney. He also calls on the IMF to provide greater guidance on capital controls and for Asian policymakers to introduce market reforms, as the summer sell-off rekindles the debate about how to stabilize emerging financial systems.

Companies – and their banks – have been quick to use changes to rules surrounding the use of renminbi and foreign currencies generated in China. In January 2013, Standard Chartered and Shell announced that they had been granted approval to set up a foreign currency cross-border sweeping structure. The structure, approved by the Chinese government following its pilot scheme to centralize foreign currency management for multinationals, allows Shell China to use surplus cash for business needs elsewhere in the group. As a result, the company reduces trapped cash – a common problem faced by global corporates – enabling greater working capital efficiency. The structure means that Shell can enhance its liquidity through the automatic sweeping of its onshore and offshore excess foreign currency (within an approved foreign debt quota and overseas lending quota). It will not only simplify the process of quota registration, drawdown and repayment, but will also reduce the cost of funds and enable greater working capital efficiency.

A leading international healthcare, medical assistance and security services company, working with Bank of America Merrill Lynch, faced a set of challenges familiar to many global companies. It had limited, unsophisticated liquidity management techniques – employed in-country – that were not linked to a liquidity management structure. Entities in each country built up or used cash in their local currencies and did not settle inter-company receivables on a timely basis. Moreover, the company had growing inter-company receivables denominated in various currencies, which exacerbated foreign exchange exposure and were not being effectively managed. Overall, the company had limited visibility of its cash positioning. Bank of America Merrill Lynch proposed the creation of a global multi-currency notional cash pool in Singapore, covering eight currencies. The pool automates data integration for cash reporting and consolidation. Implementation was achieved with minimal disruption to ongoing business activities. As a result of the project, the company has consolidated multiple currencies to achieve a net notional position in a single currency without the need to perform traditional foreign exchanges or swaps. It now benefits from intra-day monitoring of its net pool position using a current day reporting tool. In addition, the corporate has maximized its internal cash flow from overseas entities to its Singapore head office, minimized its foreign exchange risk exposure and reduced its borrowing costs in a tax-effective manner.

At a time of continuing economic uncertainty and unprecedented regulatory change, corporates are focusing on how to make their cash work more efficiently even as they move into sometimes challenging new markets. Euromoney’s 2013 Liquidity Management Survey shows how their banks are adapting their offerings in response.

Liquidity in the world’s bond markets has reached crisis point. Investors can no longer rely on banks to provide a crucial intermediary function in the secondary markets. It is time those fund managers started to think about providing that liquidity among themselves. If they do not, the consequences for the whole of the financial markets might be disastrous.

The agreement between Standard Chartered and Lloyds Bank to allow the latter to directly issue letters of credit locally in some 20 Asian markets and benefit from local currency settlement – using the emerging-market-focused bank’s infrastructure – has been touted as a win-win arrangement for both lenders. But the deal is not without its downsides.

As the European Commission (EC) moves forward with its first regulatory engagement with the shadow banking sector, policy experts argue that more work needs to be done to understand the relationship between banks and non-banks, and the ways in which shadow lenders – previously beyond the regulatory perimeter – contribute to the financial infrastructure as a whole.

The strong appetite for floating rate bonds might be tested by volatility, triggered by the Fed’s decision to delay tapering, but for now demand for investment-grade floaters, in particular, is red-hot, leaving bankers and investors to ask how long the rally can last.

Derivatives traded on Asia’s exchanges are staging a recovery, with equity index futures leading the way – despite a looming threat from global regulation aimed at taming a sector widely blamed for the financial crisis.