Tag Archive for: fx management

Enhanced Global Liquidity through Notional Pooling and Payment Netting

| 21-12-2020 | Vincenzo Masile | treasuryXL |

Liquidity management is one of the core roles of treasury and maintaining the right level of liquidity to guard against risks is of key importance. Liquidity needs are affected by many factors both internal and external, some of which lie outside the treasurer control and some of which are extremely subjective and difficult to forecast. Liquidity, after all, is not an exact science

The level of liquidity held varies hugely, even between companies in similar industries and similar market positions, while due to complex account structures a “safety net” of cash holdings may be inaccessible when most needed. Effective liquidity management requires an account structure that facilitates fast decisions and simplifies transfers between the company accounts.

A global cash pool is a balance netting cash concentration solution providing with access to group liquidity through a real-time, cross-border, multi-currency cash pooling structure. The cash pool is topped by an off-balance multi-currency master account, holding the cash pool net balance in the currency of the treasurer choice. One on-balance top account per currency holds the pooled net balance in the respective currency. A global cash pool replaces multiple local cash pools and offers significant advantages to the group liquidity management.

What is Netting?

A process which reduces transfers of funds between subsidiaries or separate companies to one net amount.

What are the benefits of Netting?

  • Consolidates and off-sets payables against receivables between multiple group companies on a global and multicurrency basis
  • Reduces the number of inter-company funds transfers
  • Minimizes costs of associated foreign exchange
  • Avoids the need for group companies to make multiple transfers and execute opposite foreign exchange transactions

The Netting Cycle

Customer:                                                                                                                                                    Netting provider:

day X-4                Company “A”  participants                  Invoices to be paid >                          processing & checking

day X-2               Company “A”  participants                <  Preliminary/Final Results                calculations

day X                   Company “A”  participants                 <  Payments from participants         settlements

Payments to participants >

Why Implement Netting?

  • Less administrative workload
    – Netting center can be viewed as corporate treasury back-office
  • Continuity of operational tasks
    – Funds will be paid/collected with proper/same value date
    – Settlement over existing local bank accounts; no accounts at netting bank are required
  • Increased visibility and control
    – All netting input and output stored in one database
  • Centralization of FX
    – Consolidates FX positions
    – Improves FX spread
    – Ability to include FX hedge transactions
  • Flexibility
    – Settlement can be in any currency required by affiliate
    – Additional run on an ad-hoc basis; quarter end, year end

Global Multi-Currency Notional Cash Pool

Notional Cash Pooling

  • Group companies open bank accounts in their own name in local currency at the pooling center
  • No inter-company loans are created
  • Group companies with credit balances at BMG are deemed bank deposits and group companies with debit balances at BMG are deemed bank overdrafts
  • All account balances – both credit and debit – are treated on a net basis
  • Interest is bank interest
  • Interest rates applied are based on the net position per currency in the cash pool (not traditional bank BID/ASK spreads)
  • Treasury can choose interest margins to create revenues for Finance company/Treasury

Zero Balance Cash Pooling

  • The Finance company (or other group company) opens accounts in their name at pooling center
  •  Group companies can put cash on deposit with the finance company or borrow from the finance company
  •  Inter-company loans are created
  •  Inter-company loans need to be administered
  • Interest is inter-company interest

True Multi-Currency Multi-Entity Notional Pool

  • Enables multiple group companies in numerous geographical regions to retain local accounts at local banks; “overlay”
  • Consolidation is achieved by transferring local balances (both debit and credit) to accounts held by the individual group companies at the pooling center. There is no change of ownership of funds, and no question of intercompany loans
  •  Offset is accomplished without physical concentration/conversion (FX)

Also:

  • One interest rate per currency (no spread between overdrafts and deposits)
  • Permits not only concentration of excess cash, but allows overdrafts within the pool
  • Full offset capabilities (risk and accounting) for both client and bank
  • Operational in multiple time-zones

Notional Cash Pool & Key Tax Points

Bank Pledge versus Cross Guarantee

  • Notional Cash Pool is based on Pledging of Balances to the bank. Normally cash pools are based on Cross Guarantees which is an unlimited joint resulting in liabilities between related group companies

 Interest

  • Interest is classified as bank interest (credit and debit). All Cash Pool balances are cash on deposit or a current account overdraft

Transfer pricing

  • The bank executes the daily investments and borrowings of the group companies and applies arm’s length interest rates. Tax can insert interest margins as needed

Interest withholding tax

  • BMG is domiciled in the Netherlands resulting in no WHT on credit interest paid. In some cases WHT is applicable on interest charged

Thin cap rules

  • The Cash Pool borrowings are deemed loans/overdrafts from the bank. Thin cap rules are sometimes more flexible regarding bank overdrafts

Conclusion

Companies who implement netting or cash pooling significantly boost the efficiency of their cash and FX management. Companies who implement both, effectively create an in-house bank. The final stage in the process of designing a new cash mobilization structure (or reviewing an existing one) is to assess all possible solutions against the group’s original objectives. Treasurers should bear in mind this to ensure an appropriate and cost-effective solution is chosen.

 

Vincenzo Masile

Treasury Expert/Credit Risk Manager

 

Transform Intercompany Trade with Multilateral Netting

| 19-8-2019 | treasuryXL | BELLIN

Legacy tools yield legacy results

Too many international companies are manually reconciling and netting intercompany invoices. These companies may lack a clear and structured workflow for this process, leading to a host of potential risks and issues along the way including:

  • High volume of intercompany transactions
  • Too many invoice and expense disputes
  • Shadow bookkeeping
  • Lost productivity
  • High bank fees and fx costs

According to a recent Deloitte poll of finance professionals, reconciliation is the biggest intercompany hurdle. With only 9.2% of finance professionals saying their organization has a holistic, efficient, and clear intercompany reconciliation process, there is a clear need for a solution.

When asked what poses the greatest challenge to the implementation of intercompany accounting:

  • 21.4% of participants claim disparate software systems are their biggest challenge
  • 16.8% claim intercompany settlement
  • 16.7% said complex intercompany agreements
  • 13.3% said transfer pricing compliance
  • 9.4% said FX exposure

Introducing a multilateral netting solution

With a centralized multilateral netting solution, companies can boost profit and productivity by gaining global visibility and control, automating processes, settling disputes locally, and reconciling and netting transactions seamlessly.

Average BELLIN clients savings with our multilateral netting solution:

  • 2 days of work per month
  • $250,000 to $1,000,000 on an annual basis from banking and FX fees

Average industry savings figures:

  • 15% year over year growth
  • 50% labor cost reduction
  • €13 saved per invoice through automation
  • 1hr of labor saved per day

Would you like to learn more about BELLIN’s multilateral netting solution? Just reach out to BELLIN for a tm5 demo, or visit tm5 page.

The Role of Netting in Cash Management

|13-8-2019 | treasuryXL | BELLIN

Increased cash flow efficiency, faster cash allocation and optimized FX management

Cash management is every company’s bread and butter. Considerably fewer companies make use of netting, despite its many advantages for cash management.

 

 

 



Netting supports companies in making their cash management more efficient and less costly by
:

  • Boosting cash flow efficiency,
  • Consolidating invoices and enabling faster cash allocation,
  • Allowing companies to better calculate their FX exposure and hedge it strategically.

Cash management

Through cash management, companies ensure they can always meet their financial obligations. It allows them to allocate the required liquidity to the right entity, at the right time, in the right currency. For treasury to achieve that, all incoming and outgoing payments as well as account balances and forecasts must be visible. With access to complete and up-to-date information, treasury can monitor processes, plan liquidity based on forecasts and strategically manage cash in different currencies.

Netting

Companies that have implemented netting offset cash flow obligations between two parties and consolidate them to a net payment. Most companies use netting for balancing intercompany trade flows. However, it is also possible to integrate other parties as netting participants. Using internally-agreed conversion rates, companies can engage in cross-currency netting.

More information on netting: Netting: An Immersive Guide to Global Reconciliation

Videos on Reconciliation and Netting and Cash Management

The impact of netting on cash management

Netting takes a specific proportion of all cash flows and places them within the framework of a dedicated and structured process. This process, the netting run, is repeated at regular intervals. It can be divided into four steps:

  1. Data import
    Data is imported from the ERP system to the netting system.
  2. Data reconciliation
    The netting system automatically matches and consolidates submitted payables and receivables based on pre-defined parameters and creates a netting statement.
  3. Data sharing
    Once data has been matched and invoices consolidated, the netting center communicates the net amount to every netting run participant. It can be issued in their currency of choice.
  4. End of cycle
    The netting center makes one single payment to participants with a positive balance. Participants with a negative balance make one net payment to the netting center.

netting run

Netting boosts cash flow efficiency

By offsetting payables and receivables, netting reduces the number of transactions. In turn, this reduces cash-in-transit. And reduced cash-in-transit and minimal transactions make for reduced efforts when it comes to procuring liquidity, interest burden and payment processing.

In addition, the schedule of the netting run means payments are made on a specific date: instead of having to monitor countless different dates, treasury can lean back and wait for the end of the netting cycle.

Netting makes the lives of cash managers much more linear: they can plan accurately and allocate the exact amounts of required funds to accounts. This means that the company can keep floating assets to a minimum. Netting lends structure to complex processes and ensures opitmal allocation of cash flows.

Netting accelerates cash consolidation and allocation

All transactions between two parties result in accounts receivable for one company and accounts payable for the counterparty. The respective journal entry must show a zero balance. However, without a structured process in place, consolidation efforts are often far from straightforward. The different parties pursue different interests – either receivable- or payable-driven.

A good netting process seeks agreement between the parties and allows them to clarify any disagreements within a structured and automated framework. Agreement-driven netting encourages participants to submit accurate data. This makes for a much faster reconciliation process and makes it possible to automate several steps of the netting cycle. A speedy reconciliation process is followed by swift payment processing –  directly in the system and with one click – and makes for greater efficiency.

Faster consolidation has a positive impact on cash flows. At the same time, netting saves treasurers valuable time when it comes to monitoring invoices. Conversely, accountants no longer need to waste hours matching invoices. On average, time savings amount to 1-2 man-days per month per entity. For a group consisting of 10 entities, this equals 10 to 20 days per month and 240 days per year – a full-time position that can be dedicated to other tasks that add real value to the company.

 

Netting saves time

Netting optimizes FX management

Netting makes it easier for companies to manage their FX exposure, i.e. to optimize their FX management.

The payment terms defined as part of the netting cycle govern the timeframe between issuing an invoice and paying it. Companies that use cross-currency netting also set internal conversion rates for the currencies in question that apply to the respective netting cycle.

Having defined dates and rates, treasurers gain insight into an entity’s hedging requirements for a specific time period and can consolidate this sum to one hedging transaction. The netting center also defines the settlement price that is used to convert each entity’s FX payments to the respective settlement currency. This creates implicit hedging. The netting center can post and settle the transactions for each netting run participant without impacting the FX result. Entities transfer their actual currency exposure to the netting center, where it can be hedged strategically.

How netting optimizes FX management – an example:

As part of a monthly netting cycle, a company defines a payment term of 30 days. An entity issues and posts an invoice in March, which is paid in April. In February, the netting center defines the FX rate for March, and the March rate is identical with the settlement price for April. The netting center has complete visibility of currency requirements and can hedge the FX exposure centrally. Transaction and conversion costs are reduced to a minimum.

Netting FX-Management

 

Netting and cash management in a nutshell:

Netting is a powerful tool for companies to optimize their cash management. Netting lends structure to offsetting cash flows and puts them into a clearly defined timeframe, the netting cycle. This has the following benefits:

  • Very precise account planning
  • More efficient cash flows
  • Faster consolidation
  • Option to automate processes
  • Speeding up of the cash allocation process
  • Visibility of FX requirements
  • Strategic FX hedging

Interested in finding out more about whether netting is the right solution for you? Give BELLIN a shout or check out tm5, our intuitive treasury management system.

 

 

Innovation in Treasury Management: Vallstein’s walletsizing

31-05-2016 | Huub Wevers from Vallstein

On april 13th of this year the Fintech innovation awards took place. Vallstein won the innovation award in treasury management with their Walletsizing® system. We asked Huub Wevers from Vallstein to give us an update on this new system. What’s new about it and who will benefit from using Walletsizing®?

Congratulations on winning the award, can you tell us more about WalletSizing?

WalletSizing® is a system in the cloud focused on giving full transparency to corporates on their spending and profitability for banks. All their banks globally, regardless of the number of banks and the type of products, varying from Fx, Cash Management, bonds, lending or asset management. We take in all data a corporate has available on the products and invoices from the bank in an innovative easy way for the corporate where they do not need to do much with the data. We translate, map and upload it into the system after which the corporate has all insight in their banking landscape and can do easy analysis with all the features the system offers.

What distinguishes WalletSizing® from its competitors?

Firstly, WalletSizing® looks at the entire bank relationship, across all product areas, not just transaction services or credit, but everything that is being used from all banks that maintain a relationship with the client concerned. Secondly, we take an explicit view through the eyes of the bank on the relationship, taking all relevant Basel III /IV regulation into account. This kind of transparency is absolutely essential to identify the real room to negotiate and ensure terms and conditions that are truly fair for both sides of the table. Thirdly: technology. We provide analysis for clients maintaining multiple bank relationships across a multitude of countries with many different banking products, which is impossible to build and let alone maintain in spreadsheets.

ROS Calculation 2

 

Who will benefit from using this system?

CFO’s and Treasurers will benefit by having full transparency in the bank relationships and as a result they will have more meaningful bank reviews, RFP’s and Negotiations. Depending on the objectives a corporate has, it will allow them to be fair in their distribution of business towards banks, limit the number of banks used globally or keep banks costs in line with market practice as will be indicated by the system’s benchmarking capabilities. Where cost saving was an objective, corporates saved 26% on their bank costs on average, across the entire relationship, all products.

Vallstein won the Fintech innovation Award 2016, what is innovative about your system?

We take away the need for extensive data gathering, translating and analysis by taking this responsibility upon us and we create full transparency using all data and the latest Basel III rules in a matter of days. Comparing banks like for like. Next to this we have extended the functionalities last year by having a edition focused on Bank Fee Analysis as well. The system verifies automatically after upload of new invoices if the prices paid are as agreed earlier with the banks. A simple and somewhat more operational step.

Can you give some examples of companies and employees that are using Walletsizing®?

Examples of Companies that are currently using WalletSizing® are SaudiAramco, Salzgitter, Vimpelcom and many more. Typically, the Treasury Control department works with the system on a day to day basis and depending who is having the bank reviews the Treasurer or CFO will be using the reporting.

 

Picture_HWHuub Wevers is responsible for Corporate Solutions at Vallstein, the leading Bank Relationship Management specialist. Before joining Vallstein he has had eighteen years of experience in Banking at ABN AMRO and RBS, notably Transaction Banking. His responsibilities included Product Management, Account Management, Implementation and Operations, whereby his last role was the leadership of all Service & Operations in EMEA for RBS. At Vallstein Huub is responsible for building out the software solutions that Vallstein offers for corporates. Solutions that automate bank relationship management in order to assess the profitability that a corporate has for their banks, using all banking products and Basel III.