The Rise of Alternative Payment Rails: What Treasurers Should Know About Thunes–MoMo and TerraPay Xend
From Treasury Masterminds Corporate treasurers love stability, but the payments infrastructure clearly didn’t get the memo. Over the past year, a different type of cross-border network has been creeping into the spotlight — one built not on correspondent banks, but on mobile wallets, interoperability layers and real-time settlement rails. Two developments stand out right now: You don’t have to like the hype, but you should understand what it means. Thunes + MoMo: Real-Time Cross-Border Payments Into Nigeria Nigeria is one of the biggest remittance corridors in the world, and also one of the toughest for corporates managing payouts, refunds or supplier payments. Traditional correspondent-banking paths into the country often run on limited windows, slow clearing, and unpredictable end-to-end fees. Thunes and MoMo PSB are trying to break that pattern by connecting global send corridors directly into millions of mobile-wallet users in Nigeria with real-time settlement. Why this matters for corporate treasury This isn’t just a consumer remittance upgrade. It’s a signal: Africa’s payment corridors are modernising from the outside in. TerraPay’s Xend Network: The Interoperability Push TerraPay’s new Xend network positions itself as a global payments-interoperability layer, linking banks, mobile-money schemes, wallets and fintech platforms. The pitch is simple: one connection, many endpoints. If this sounds like the modernised, API-first cousin of traditional clearing networks… it basically is. What Xend wants to solve Xend aims to function as the connective tissue, the “universal adaptor” treasurers secretly wish existed. Why it matters for corporates If Xend scales, it could become part of the treasury conversation whenever companies evaluate multi-rail payment strategies. The Bigger Picture: A Parallel System Is Forming Treasurers are now quietly dealing with two payment worlds: The second category used to be an afterthought. Not anymore. What Treasurers Should Do Now Also Read Join our Treasury Community Treasury Mastermind is a community of professionals working in treasury management or those interested in learning more about various topics related to treasury management, including cash management, foreign exchange management, and payments. To register and connect with Treasury professionals, click [HERE] or fill out the form below to get more information. Notice: JavaScript is required for this content.
Franklin
Why SMB Finance Teams Don’t Need a Full Enterprise Treasury Management System
This article is a contribution from our partner, TreasuryView TL, DR Enterprise Treasury Management Systems (TMS) are designed for multinationals managing global cash pools, hundreds of bank accounts, and complex derivatives. For SMBs with €10M–€500M in loans, these systems are overbuilt, costly, and slow to implement. What SMB finance teams need is visibility, automation, and audit-ready reporting. Modern cloud solutions like TreasuryView provide the control and insights SMBs need in days, without the enterprise baggage. The Visibility Myth: Bigger, Entreprise Systems Aren’t Always Better When SMB finance teams begin struggling with Excel: manual reconciliations, version errors, and late-night reporting, many assume the next step is an enterprise TMS. These platforms promise total visibility across debt, liquidity, and risk. But visibility isn’t about the number of features; it’s about having the right features for your team size and complexity. For SMBs, enterprise solutions often add unnecessary cost and operational burden while still leaving day-to-day needs unmet. Why Enterprise TMS Doesn’t Fit SMB Needs 1. Costly Systems to Buy and Maintain for SMBs Enterprise TMS solutions are built and priced for global corporations. Licensing alone can run into hundreds of thousands of euros annually, with additional spend required for consultants, custom integrations, and ongoing IT support. All the investment and binding contracts also make it hard to leave the For SMBs managing €10M–€500M in loans, this level of overhead diverts capital away from growth and liquidity management. 2. Painfully Slow Implementation while SMB finance teams need solution fast Enterprise TMS deployments are notorious for being complex IT projects. A full rollout can take 6–12 months, requiring ERP integrations, vendor workshops, and training. During this time, reporting inefficiencies remain unsolved, often worsen. SMBs, however, need visibility today, not next year. With TreasuryView, onboarding takes less than a day with sign up less than <1 min, with no IT involvement. 3. Over-Engineered Treasury Features that SMBs Never Need/Use Enterprise systems shine in costly areas like cash management, payment management, and Liquidity Management – tools that few SMBs ever need. Most SMBs simply need a clear debt dashboard, automated maturity reporting, and accurate interest cost forecasting. Paying for advanced modules you’ll never use wastes both budget and team capacity, needless to tell the onboarding time that it saves and how more simple and intuitive software is to use. 4. Operational Burden Running an enterprise TMS requires specialized staff, hourse of training… For a lean SMB team, where the CFO and controller often wear multiple hats, this creates an impossible workload. In practice, many SMBs end up reverting back to Excel while their costly TMS sits underused. TreasuryView eliminates this friction with an intuitive, spreadsheet-like interface that requires no treasury expertise or IT background. Human support is always available for a quick call – no IT ticket and talking with AI. The SMB Finance Team’s Reality: Lean Teams, Complex Portfolios SMB finance teams face serious treasury challenges, especially since managing debt and treasury in spreadsheet, is risky: The real constraint isn’t sophistication — it’s time and bandwidth. Excel creates risk; enterprise TMS adds complexity. SMBs need the middle path: fit-for-purpose visibility without enterprise overhead. What SMBs Actually Need in a TMS Alternative The right treasury platform for SMBs should focus on essentials: These capabilities cover 95% of SMB treasury needs without the cost, delay, or operational burden of an enterprise TMS. When (Rarely) an Enterprise TMS Makes Sense An enterprise TMS may be justified if your company is: Conclusion: SMB Finance team, Don’t Overbuy Complexity! Enterprise TMS platforms are designed for multinationals with large treasury teams. SMBs need visibility, automation, and compliance without complexity. Also Read Join our Treasury Community Treasury Mastermind is a community of professionals working in treasury management or those interested in learning more about various topics related to treasury management, including cash management, foreign exchange management, and payments. To register and connect with Treasury professionals, click [HERE] or fill out the form below to get more information. Notice: JavaScript is required for this content.