It was the talk of the town at the October 2006 Sibos conference in Sydney. Yet beyond payments circles, few in the financial services industry may actually know what financial supply chain management is. But all that is about to change, according to insiders, as the concept rapidly becomes the norm among banks that wish to maintain a foothold in an increasingly globalized world where their clients’ business dealings expand across borders and time zones. Financial supply chain management is an outgrowth of the long-established concept of the physical supply chain in the trade business. Rather than dealing solely with the actual physical/logistical aspects of trade, however, financial supply chain management, as the name implies, covers the payments side of trade, from the moment a purchase order is cut, to the time of settlement and everything in between.