ABN AMRO's API use case: improved processes for SVEA

Svea Finans offers liquidity to SMEs and self-employed professionals by offering American factoring. Svea buys B2B invoices and pays out the money immediately to the company. This shortens the payment term and the debtor pays the invoices directly to Svea. This way, companies can use their working capital to grow their business further. In this interview, René van ‘t Hof, CTO of Svea Finans, explains how ABN AMRO’s Business Account Insight API and Business Account Payment API improved their processes by making them faster, safer, and at the same time, enhancing the employee and customer experience.

"Svea is part of the Swedish Svea Group and has 20 years of experience in SME funding by using American factoring in the Dutch market. With their factoring service, Svea purchases invoices and pays out the amount to the company immediately, and takes over the debtor management, offering zero credit risk. As a result, the company frees up capital to grow its business further. Svea focuses on a great customer experience by offering flexible and custom services."

"We are growing really fast, therefore we want to improve all of our processes. In this case, we were looking to automate the reporting process. More specifically, we wanted a near real-time dashboard for the debtor management department. This dashboard contained data from the latest End of Day (EOD) report extracted from the bank system. Based on this information, our staff reaches out to debtors with late payments."

"As you can imagine, it is not a good experience to call a debtor who has already paid the amount due. This regularly occurred when the data on the dashboard was refreshed once a day, so we were always a day behind. By getting the data near real-time, it prevents inaccurate calls to debtors."

"During a conversation with ABN AMRO, we explained our problem and our needs. They indicated that the challenge we faced could be solved by integrating ABN AMRO’s Business Account Insight API. After reading about the API on the Developer Portal and after discussing with the development team, we were convinced this would be the perfect solution."

"Using ABN AMRO's Business Account Insight API, the dashboard automatically updates the data every 30 minutes during the day. Via the integration with the API, we get the latest account information of our bank accounts, and we can see if outstanding invoices are paid. This way, the information on the dashboard is near real-time — once every half an hour is sufficient. Now, the debtor management department can blindly trust the information on the dashboard and carry on their work collecting late payments easily. As a result, we have automated the process and improved the employee and the customer experience."

"Based on this use case, we agreed to participate in the pilot of ABN AMRO's Business Account Payment API. This API enables us to execute payments automatically during the day. We designed and implemented a machine-to-machine process for the payments. Therefore, no human intervention is needed, resulting in a safer and quicker process."

"The integration of both APIs was very easy and quick. We built everything ourselves. The moment our developers focus on such a task they complete it very fast. Per API, the integration took about one or two days. By joining the pilot phase, we gave some feedback during the integration on -for instance- documentation, ABN AMRO was very perceptive to it and it was a nice way to collaborate. In general, we really like the contact we have with ABN AMRO. In our opinion, the bank in general plays a completely different role than before. To us, digital is good but personal contact is very important. Relying on a loyal relationship is everything, and if APIs can be a part of that, great!"

"Using ABN AMRO's Business Account Insight and Payment API, we have improved processes significantly:

• More secure in processing data and personal information;
• Less error-prone, because of limited human interventions;
• More efficient and faster, due to automation and near real-time insights;
• Reduced costs;
• Improved employee and customer experience."

"We are growing quickly and improving constantly. So we are open to any interesting API, ABN AMRO can offer us to improve our processes further. Personally, I can't wait for Instant Payments to be added as a feature to the Business Account Payment API."

Interested in what ABN AMRO's Business Account Insight API and the Business Account Payment API could do for your company? Take a look at our ABN AMRO Developer Portal or contact us.