Etisalat reaps the benefits of treasury transformation
The challenge
Etisalat’s treasury team was managing its treasury operations including cash, funding, risk and reporting manually with Excel spreadsheets. The team’s transaction volumes were increasing at the same time as maintaining relationships with more than 50 banks and 230 bank accounts across Etisalat Group and its subsidiaries.
As the portfolio continued to grow significantly and become more complex, the team realised that it was time to seek out a treasury management system (TMS). The treasury team explored the market and invited service providers to participate in an RFP process.
The solution
After a year of due diligence with service providers, the FIS Quantum TMS was selected because it was a complete end-to-end solution that included an array of services conducted by FIS’ team of experts and not a third party.
The solution also had the features and functionality that the team required. Etisalat set up a project team that consisted of procurement, IT (security and network experts), a project manager as well as business users – approximately ten to 15 people.
Etisalat’s treasury team decided to implement Quantum in a phased approach, first across the Etisalat Group and operating companies in UAE and then associated operations in KSA. The third phase saw its integration with Oracle and across other businesses in other countries.
The project kicked off in June 2017 and took seven months. The UAT was launched in September 2017 and the company went live with Phase I in January 2018.
Best practice and innovation
Etisalat’s treasury team is leveraging Quantum to help automate and manage all its investments, including money market deposits, which account for 70-80% of the portfolio, as well as other asset classes including fixed income bonds and mutual funds.
Quantum provides the treasury team with a very comprehensive dashboard for investments that gives them visibility into all asset classes, historical recording, approvals and interest calculations across the whole portfolio. Almost 100% of investments including current accounts are part of Quantum.
One of the team’s requirements was to implement Quantum across interest-bearing (current) accounts. The team maintains five in the UAE and others in additional countries. The team engaged with FIS’ professional services team to help automate current accounts using the MT940 message format. A bank statement is populated at the end of each month and Quantum calculates the yields and updates the dashboard. Additionally, all financing and risk management deals are performed and automated in Quantum, including debt reports, accrual of interest, cash flow reports and MTM of outstanding hedge positions.
Etisalat has also integrated Quantum with Bloomberg. All money market deposits and FX transactions are executed through Bloomberg and sent to and recorded in Quantum without any manual intervention and this provides the team with visibility across its risk exposures.
From a cash management perspective, the treasury team has automated its cash management processes and improved its cash visibility and cash forecasting which has substantially optimised the liquidity resources of the company. There is complete integration between Quantum and the company’s bank accounts. The team gets daily and weekly cash reports in Quantum for all its accounts.
Key benefits
The solution has resulted in reduced manual processes, improved operational efficiencies and better cash forecasting. The team has gained a holistic view on cash, risk, debt and investments; an automated investment portfolio across all asset classes; and improved risk exposure across FX transactions and interest rate swaps with the integration of Quantum and Bloomberg.
Other key benefits include automation of all financing deals in Quantum, including debt reports, accrual of interest, cash flow reports, MTM of derivatives and improved reporting.
