While payments and treasury services span multiple industries, commercial real estate has unique considerations, including managing liquidity, sending payments, receiving rent and complex account structures.
“Commercial real estate organizations of all sizes can benefit from JPMorgan Chase’s digital banking platforms. We’re focused on industry-specific issues—and solutions—to help clients optimize liquidity, gain insights into operating accounts and manage rent payments,” said Jen D’Ambrosie, Head of Northeast Commercial Real Estate Treasury Services at JPMorgan Chase.
Digital banking offers many advantages and can address some of the top issues facing commercial real estate owners, operators and investors, including:
- Costs associated with manual, paper-based processes
- Numerous operating accounts across financial institutions
- Cybersecurity and fraud risks
- Operating in economic uncertainty
How a digital banking platform can help improve efficiency
Tech-forward tools can save commercial real estate organizations both time and money. Digital processes are less time-consuming than manual, paper-based ones and can speed up accounts payable and receivable activities and reduce labor costs. For example, automation can help staff members spend less time on complex processes, so they can focus on more meaningful issues, such as improving the resident experience. Likewise, organizations can gain greater efficiencies by implementing digital processes, which can help reduce human error and improve accuracy. Digital operations can help organizations become more efficient in other ways, including:
- Providing mobile access so users can review payments, check balances and perform critical tasks inside the office and out
- Allowing employees to work remotely, which can also improve business resiliency
How a digital banking platform can help increase visibility
Commercial real estate businesses often have hundreds of operating accounts across financial institutions. The ability to view those accounts in one place can be a game changer. J.P. Morgan Access® users can leverage multibank reporting to see critical data across operating accounts, making the portal a one-stop shop for banking information. Commercial real estate companies can also reduce implementation time and costs by using a digital banking platform. For example, if you have accounts across 10 banks, JPMorgan Chase can communicate with different financial institutions to centralize the data feed rather than requiring you to contact each bank individually.
“J.P. Morgan Access as an information and payments consolidator combines the security of a trusted execution partner combined with the agility of a fintech,” D’Ambrosie said. “Access removes the need of fragmented systems and duplicative external platforms by consolidating to a single portal for real-time information. Our clients benefit from increased control through operating efficiencies brought on by multibank reporting and payments initiation.”
How a digital banking platform can help improve cybersecurity and protect against fraud
Whether it’s wire fraud, business email compromise or rent payment fraud, organizations face threats on multiple fronts. And because check use is commonplace in commercial real estate—63% of respondents to the 2023 AFP® Payments Fraud and Control Survey report that their organizations experienced fraud activity via checks—the industry may be at greater risk. Digital tools can validate account and ownership information so participants know beforehand if the instructed beneficiary matches the owner of the account they’re paying.
Other fraud-protection services may include:
- ACH debit block: Organizations can block all ACH debits from their accounts or specify which vendors can be paid via ACH.
- Check protection: Based on provided information, digital banking tools can review checks and identify any discrepancies.
- Check monitoring: Organizations can set a dollar amount threshold with a max dollar review and their digital banking platform can flag checks at or above the amount for review.
How a digital banking platform can help organizations plan for the future
In uncertain economic times, it’s hard to know what to expect next. But digital banking can help commercial real estate organizations financially prepare for the future. With the cash visibility a digital platform provides, businesses can connect relevant internal input sources, including rent payments, property-related disbursements and corporate payments. Digital payments, automated processes and interconnected systems and their resulting data allows organizations to conduct an extensive analysis to understand immediate and midterm funding needs, improving cash positioning and forecasting.
