Overview of Development of Cash Management Products in Serbia

Cash management products are in the function of improving company’s business i.e. cash flow. The subject of this paper is to determine the level of development of cash management products in Serbia. It is important to say that foreign-owned banks in Serbia whose headquarters are in Austria (Raiffeisen bank and HVB, which was acquired by UniCredit on group level later on), introduced more sophisticated cash management products at the end of 2002 with implementation of e-banking and movement of domestic payments in commercial banks. Also, it is important to emphasize that banks with pure focus on corporate segment have continued to develop those products in our country (Raiffeisen bank, UniCredit bank, Banca Intesa and Erste bank). The analyses contain comparison of CM products between local bank and its headquarter abroad in years 2009 and 2012. The criterion for classification of cash management products is adopted from Raiffeisen Zentral Bank Product Catalogue (2008). Research showed that domestic banks in Italian ownership (Banca Intesa and UniCredit) have taken leading role in introduction of new Cash management products thanks to good own IT sector in Serbia. At the same time, current regulation is limitation in expending range of cash management products in Serbia.