L’Oréal Brazil serves as a global benchmark for treasury
Published: Sep 2026
Best in Class Treasury Solution in The Americas
Highly Commended Winner
L’Oréal Brazil
Photo of Raphael Falconi and Stéphane Chen, L’Oréal Brazil and Ciaran Walsh, J.P. Morgan.
Raphael Falconi
Treasurer
Michel Vasconcelos
Head of Treasury for LATAM Region
Brazil
L’Oréal Brazil is the group’s third-largest global market. Operating with over 3,000 employees, the division locally manufactures 95% of its products – like the popular Elseve brand – at a major facility in São Paulo, supported by a world-class Research and Innovation Centre in Rio de Janeiro.
in partnership with
The challenge
L’Oréal’s Brazil operations relied on a patchwork of local and global banks to manage its diverse transactions, maintaining multiple banking relationships, numerous accounts and separate connectivity to each institution. This fragmented structure created operational inefficiency, increased fraud risk and required the treasury approvers to log into multiple bank portals to authorise payments.
The company wanted full standardisation, full automation and a simplified banking structure. They launched Payment4All, a global initiative to standardise payment processes across its worldwide operations. The project aimed to transition all payment types to ISO XML files, implement International Bank Account Number (IBAN)‑based payments and centralise payment initiation through its SAP enterprise resource planning (ERP) platform and internal treasury management system (TMS), MyTreasury.
Brazil’s regulatory and tax environment is among the most complex in the world. Its clearing systems do not accept IBAN; they require local bank and branch numbers.
The solution
Choosing J.P. Morgan Payments as its core bank in Brazil coincided with L’Oréal’s Brazil’s Payment4All deployment. This strategic decision allowed both workstreams to advance simultaneously. The teams needed to find a way to bridge L’Oréal’s global payment standards with Brazil’s local clearing infrastructure. To solve this, they developed a custom internal process that converts IBAN information into the local bank and branch format required by Brazilian clearing systems. This unique capability enabled L’Oréal to submit all payments in IBAN format from its global ERP system while maintaining full compliance with local regulations. The team also standardised all payment files to ISO XML, eliminating the need for local file formats. L’Oréal established host-to-host connectivity between its SAP platform, MyTreasury TMS and J.P. Morgan Payments. This created a comprehensive end-to-end payment chain.
The company also consolidated 99.9% of all Brazilian tax payments – including exclusive and restricted taxes – through a single bank using J.P. Morgan Payments’ Multibank Tax Payment solution. This gave L’Oréal coverage of payment types that its previous core bank could not support, such as a specific tax obligation payable only via Pix and QR code.
Thanks to this close collaboration, L’Oréal built a fully automated, end-to-end payment infrastructure with no manual payment capability by design.
“Winning the Adam Smith Award in the Best in Class Treasury Solution in The Americas category is a proud moment in my treasury journey. For me, it symbolises the power of turning complexity into innovation. For L’Oréal Brazil, it highlights our role as a pioneer – proving that even in one of the world’s most challenging payment landscapes, we can set a benchmark for global transformation. This recognition inspires us to keep pushing boundaries and shaping the future of treasury.”
Raphael Falconi, Treasurer
Best practice and innovation
L’Oréal Brazil was one of the most complex entities to go live on Payment4All due to the country’s complex payment landscape. It now serves as the benchmark for future global rollouts with similar complexity.
The custom IBAN-to-local-format conversion process is a true innovation. No standard solution existed to reconcile L’Oréal’s global IBAN requirement with Brazil’s local clearing systems, so the teams engineered one from scratch. This capability now serves as a replicable model for other L’Oréal entities pursuing their own Payment4All migrations.
L’Oréal Brazil achieved 100% automated payment processing; its treasury cannot execute a single manual payment by design. This eliminates manual intervention, reduces the risk of fraud and human error and accelerates payment processing.
By centralising all payments, tax obligations and approval workflows through a single platform and banking partner, L’Oréal created a technology-centric treasury model built on simplicity, security and scalability.
Key benefits
Cost savings.
Process efficiencies.
Risk mitigation.
Number of banking partners/bank accounts reduced.
Future-proof solution.
Improved visibility.
Increased automation.
Increased system connectivity.
Manual intervention reduced.
Reduction in errors.
L’Oréal Brazil’s Payment4All implementation reshaped how the company interacts with its suppliers, how its people spend their time and how the broader organisation approaches payment modernisation worldwide.
L’Oréal Brazil’s treasury team now explores new products and supports other functions across the business. Meanwhile, board-level approvers who previously navigated multiple bank portals to authorise payments now use a single platform. The procure-to-pay team processes payments on fewer days each week. Supplier relationships improved as well; vendors receive consolidated payments with clear remittance detail, making their own reconciliation simpler and faster.
As other L’Oréal entities around the world prepare their own Payment4All migrations, the Brazil playbook offers both a practical guide and proof that even the most complex markets can be brought into a unified global standard.
Dyana Oliveira
Vice President, Treasury Services Sales – Corporate & Investment Bank, J.P. Morgan Payments
L’Oréal’s Payment4All journey in Brazil is a powerful example of how complex markets can be standardised without compromising on compliance, control or automation. By designing an end-to-end, fully automated payment chain – supported by host-to-host connectivity and return files aligned to SAP reconciliation needs – L’Oréal eliminated manual payments by design and strengthened operational resilience. We’re proud to have supported this transformation and congratulate L’Oréal Brazil on this well-deserved recognition.
in partnership with
The Adam Smith Awards are the industry benchmark for best practice and innovation in corporate treasury. The 2026 awards attracted 635 nominations. To find out more please visit treasurytoday.com/adam-smith-awards
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