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Connectivity - Fundamentals

What It Is (General)

Connectivity encompasses the methods and technologies used to connect corporate treasury systems with banks, ERPs, data lakes, and other data sources. This includes host-to-host connections, SWIFT, APIs, bank portals, ERP integrations, TMS platforms, payment hubs, and SFTP/cloud pipelines.

What It Means for Our ICP

How Treasury Teams Think About It

Treasury teams view connectivity as foundational infrastructure. Without good connectivity, every downstream process (cash positioning, forecasting, reporting) requires manual work. They think about: - Coverage - Which banks are connected vs require manual access - Timeliness - Real-time vs end-of-day vs T+1 data - Reliability - Does the connection break? How often?

On's Situation (Source: 2024-09-26) Amanda: "We don't really have like a TMS or any consolidation tool for all of our bank accounts. I just go into all of these portals." She logs into UBS, BNP, Commerce Bank, Deutsche Bank, JP Morgan separately each morning. UBS is checked daily; others less frequently.

Typical Processes & Timing

  • Morning: Check main bank portals before cutoff times
  • Daily: Compare portal balances against ERP/Looker dashboards
  • Monthly: Reconciliation catches up with any gaps

Tools They Use Today

  • Bank portals - Direct login to each bank's web interface
  • Limitation: Manual, time-consuming, no consolidation
  • Looker/ERP dashboards - Consolidated view but not real-time
  • Limitation: Depends on bank reconciliation (external team)
  • TMS (Kyriba, etc.) - Consolidated bank view
  • Limitation: Implementation complexity, mapping rules

ON's Dynamics/BigQuery Integration (Source: 2026-02-18) New IT product manager for Dynamics is excited about the Palm integration. Ready to kick off, resources expected in Q2. Wants specs and documentation from Palm. Previous context: ON preferred BigQuery as integration method (2025-10-02). (Shared by Amanda/Rodrigo.)

How They Talk About It

  • "Bank portals" - the web interfaces they log into
  • "Source of truth" - which system has the authoritative balance
  • "Bank reconciliation" - process that updates ERP with bank data
  • "Host-to-host" - direct bank integration
  • "Cash pool" - bank structure that sweeps balances

Palm's Strategic Perspective on Connectivity

Build Connectivity for Trust, Not (Just) Execution (Source: 2026-02-24, Internal) - TMS connectivity assumption questioned: Even customers with TMS (Discogs, Personio, Digital Realty) experiencing data quality issues. Four links in the chain from bank to Palm increases failure points. - Trust eroded by connectivity failures: Data quality problems undermine trust even in long-term forecasting that's working well. "How do you build trust if the data is not right?" - Strategic question: Should Palm build direct bank connectivity primarily to ensure data quality/trust, rather than for execution (payments) capabilities? - Fedas as safety net vs core offering: Currently positioned as backup when customer connectivity is unreliable, not as default go-to-market. - Execution may become commodity: AI agents potentially able to use existing bank UIs/systems. But data quality and plumbing layer may still be moat.

Sources: view all