Review and authorization

No instruction leaves the desk on one person’s say-so. A Treasury Approver who did not prepare the instruction checks the amount, the counterparty and its eligibility, the legs and the documents, and records a decision against the exact revision. The decision is Approve, Reject or Return, with a reason, a date and the approver’s name. Approval moves the instruction to Authorized and raises its revision.

The approver must be an active team member in the same legal entity. Deals follow the same rule: the approver records a decision for the deal’s parent instruction and revision before the deal can be approved. Because decisions carry the revision they saw, a change after approval needs a new decision.

• Independent approver. The preparer can never approve their own instruction or deal. The approver is named on the decision.
• Return for a fixable gap. Return sends the instruction back with a reason, such as a wrong value date. Reject stops it.
• Decision tied to revision. The decision records the revision number. An instruction edited after approval goes back to review.

Agree who may approve in each legal entity, and whether larger amounts need a more senior approver. Agree what the approver must check: counterparty eligibility, balanced legs, settlement instructions, value date. Agree when to return and when to reject. Set a turnaround target for instructions waiting in Review before the bank’s cut-off.

At 10:15 a preparer sends a 4,000,000 USD intercompany transfer to Review at revision 2. The approver sees the credit leg on an account belonging to a different entity than the subject states. She returns it with the reason “credit account belongs to the Singapore entity; subject says Hong Kong”. The preparer fixes the leg, the revision moves to 3 and it comes back to Review.

The approver authorizes revision 3 at 10:40, well before the bank’s cut-off. Earlier that morning the same preparer had tried to approve a small payment she had drafted herself; the decision was refused because a preparer never approves her own work.

• Instructions Awaiting Authorization — Instructions in Review with counterparty, amount, dates, owner and revision.
• Deals Awaiting Approval — Submitted deals with instrument, trade date, notional and counterparty confirmation.
• My Review Decisions — The signed-in approver’s own decisions.

• Instruction to authorization: The decision that authorizes an instruction.
• Deal confirmation: The decision that approves a deal.

Check roles and permissions before naming approvers.