Treasury transformation fuels Pop Mart’s growth ambitions
Published: Feb 2026
Best Treasury Transformation Project
Highly Commended Winner
Pop Mart International Group Ltd.
Photo of Evelyn Xie, Pop Mart International Group Ltd.
Evelyn Xie
Treasury Manager
Pop Mart International Group Ltd. is a Chinese company founded in 2010 by Wang Ning, specialising in the design, development and sale of pop toys, particularly blind boxes, across China and internationally.
The challenge
As Pop Mart rapidly expanded its global footprint across 23+ diverse markets, its treasury team emerged as a strategic enabler, navigating complexities of globalisation while ensuring resilient and scalable financial operations. Key challenges included:
Ineffective settlement process – due to a completely manual process, Pop Mart allocated significant time to process and execute transactions. The mounting workload eventually not only led to inefficient processing and delays in settlements but also gave rise to operational errors and data discrepancies.
Lack of visibility and control – with a decentralised treasury management structure, Pop Mart had to deal with limited visibility and control over funds and FX in increasingly more overseas subsidiaries. This lack of centralised oversight hindered effective decision-making and exposed the company to potentially increased financial risks.
Inefficient liquidity management – wholly idle funds were scattered across numerous accounts with minimal returns, leading to sub-optimal liquidity management. The absence of a coordinated approach to mobilise and maximise surplus funds hindered the company’s ability to optimise cash flow and generate maximal returns.
The solution
Pop Mart’s treasury team embarked on a transformation journey to fully digitise its treasury operations. Working with Citi, Pop Mart has started to set up a Global Treasury Centre in Singapore to streamline and centralise its global settlement and liquidity management. The bank now effectively manages 77 accounts in 19 currencies in 23 countries for Pop Mart.
Pop Mart has harnessed a full suite of cash management products to revolutionise its treasury operations and has automated its global payment infrastructure through a dual end-to-end integration with its core online banking at Citi in Hong Kong, combining both secure host-to-host (H2H) connectivity and API integration. The H2H utilises SFTP with PGP encryption that connects with its ERP system for payment processing, coupled with automated MT940 and MT942 messages for reconciliation of transaction records and account balances. Simultaneously, the API integration with a separate treasury management system (TMS) enables instant payment status tracking, balance inquiries, proof of payment retrieval and credit notifications. This dual-channel digital infrastructure has enabled Pop Mart to further streamline the cross-border payment process in each country, leading to approximately 90% reduction in manual processing, and about 50% faster reconciliation and 24/7 global cash visibility while maintaining robust security‑creating a scalable platform that supports Pop Mart’s continued international growth.
Pop Mart’s Payer ID solutions create a seamless financial ecosystem, where each of the 100+ stores and wholesalers in Hong Kong, Singapore, US, UK and France is assigned with unique Payer ID enabling automated reconciliation of collections via the process integration with Pop Mart’s ERP system, optimising the management efficiency of its supply chain operations.
Leveraging China’s State Administration of Foreign Exchange (SAFE) Simplification Programme and the bank’s post-transaction monitoring mechanisms, Pop Mart has adopted the paperless approach for cross-border payments, which enables supporting document-free cross-border payments, reducing processing time by 60% by projection. Pop Mart implemented an automated MBTBA that sweeps cash from the physical stores banking locally with third party banks to respective regional hub headers with its bank for consolidation.
Best practice and innovation
Pop Mart is the first Chinese global chain store retailer with both online and offline platforms to adopt dual SFTP and API connectivity with separate ERP and TMS systems. This innovative approach creates sustainable value for the company to ensure complete transparency, minimising operational risks, maximising operating efficiency and delivering cost savings. This phased transformation, from basic automation to intelligent treasury operations, demonstrates Pop Mart’s commitment to best in class financial infrastructure that scales with its global ambitions.
Key benefits
Cost savings.
Headcount savings.
Process efficiencies.
Increased automation.
Risk mitigated.
Improved visibility.
Errors reduced.
Number of banking partners/bank accounts reduced.
Manual intervention reduced.
Increased system connectivity.
Future-proof solution.
The Adam Smith Awards Asia are the industry benchmark for best practice and innovation in corporate treasury. To find out more please visit treasurytoday.com/adam-smith-awards-asia
