Planfocus: Architects of Next Generation Cash Cycle Optimisation

We empower banking, retail, and service industries worldwide to drive optimisation and cost reduction in their cash cycle and generate short-term return on investment

He elaborates that shortening the cash cycle and avoiding cross shipping of cash up and down the chain are key to optimising the cash cycle. To this end, the CCO^® solution consolidates the ordering process, while controlling the upstream cash centre inventory planning to prevent outages and have the right amount of cash at the right place. “Our mission is to let people use the payment options they prefer without having to overpay for it, keeping the cost of cash competitive in the marketplace,” highlights Walser. Besides, planfocus is one of the pioneering companies worldwide to provide enhanced collaboration between commercial banks by leveraging GS1-standardised XML communication in the process of ordering and provisioning. This improves the delivered service-levels while simultaneously cutting down on risks related to stockouts and reducing costs for CIT and cash returns.

Markedly, the capability of CCO^® has attracted many leading banking institutes to incorporate the solution in their business processes. Recently, ING Belgium (a fully-owned subsidiary of ING Group) implemented CCO^® software across their multi-stage supply chain, from ATMs and recyclers to bank branches and cash centre, even connecting online retail clients. The end-to-end CCO system helped ING achieve the desired intelligent forecasting of cash demand, planning of cash logistics, order handling, and pushes the envelope further to integrate even foreign currencies and gold orders, in addition to tracking and tracing all shipments executed with ING’s in-house service agency.

With such unique best-in-class offerings in the area of cash cycle management, delivered at a cost-effective pricing structure, planfocus operates with a 75 percent share in the German market today and worldwide in 20 countries (as of 2020). In addition, planfocus enjoys a high business growth rate—almost 25 percent—annually. “Our uniqueness lies in the fact that we ensure the availability of the right cash products across cash points at the right time, and in doing so, we are providing value to our customers that gives them an ROI that can often be measured in months rather than years,” adds Walser. Having already established themselves as a competent cash cycle optimisation partner, planfocus is now focusing on its geographic expansion across North America, Eastern Europe, MEA, Latin America, and Asia through its alliance with global and regional distribution partners.