One-click cash investment solution gives Hunting plc access to reverse repo market and more

The challenge

The company’s primary focus is implementing technology into specific projects, with targeted goals such as risk management and improved efficiency to integrate processes and platforms into its treasury management system; the overarching aim is always to do more with less.

“On a big picture basis, the pandemic encouraged us to think more carefully about security on our excess cash balances,” recalls Christopher Berris, Group Treasurer.

The solution

This thinking led Hunting to implement TreasurySpring’s cash investment solution. This offers a web app, application programming interface (API), and third-party integrations, allowing the company to manage its surplus cash at the click of a button and without any infrastructure requirements. The solution provides access to 300+ short-term cash investment options across multiple currencies and tenors, ranging from one week to one year through a single, digital onboarding. A crucial benefit of the platform is that it has unlocked the reverse-repo market and packaged it into a slick, digital application; a previously inaccessible cash investment option that helped the company to materially reduce risk and diversify its investment, by offering access to over-collateralised bank risk.

“The diversification and better positioning from a credit standpoint, while adding yield in a low-yielding environment, is a win-win situation for us,” says Berris.

Best practice and innovation

The platform has opened the door for Hunting to invest its excess liquidity in the same way as the largest, most sophisticated global treasury teams, without the need for any of the infrastructure, connectivity or resources typically required to do so. As a UK listed company, they went through a simplified onboarding process, that enabled access to the platform after just 48 hours, as all the relevant due-diligence checks were completed online and through a trusted know your customer (KYC) partner. They did not have to complete any paperwork or administer any wet signatures to sign off the KYC processes, which was highly efficient and necessary during a global pandemic. They are now able to access an ever growing universe of the highest quality cash investment options that were not otherwise accessible due to previously manual operations, whilst simplifying execution and roll-overs to deliver a low-touch, high-value cash management strategy.

Key benefits

• Return on investment.
• Increased automation.
• Risk mitigated.
• Improved visibility.
• Future proof solution.
• Exceptional implementation (budget/time).

The Fixed-Term Fund (FTF) platform is unique, being the only offering of its kind. It is an entirely new financial asset class, and this is optimised for the short-term financing markets. This is ideal for forward-thinking treasury departments that want to diversify. It not only allows the company to be ahead of regulatory updates, but it can also take advantage of future benefits such as accessing newly onboarded banks. This has been immensely valuable as Hunting were able to implement it without the need to invest in costly and time-consuming financial infrastructure (as the cost to use the platform is free) or additional internal human resources.

“By delivering a ‘one-click’ access to the repo (secured financing) market for all institutions holding excess cash balances, our partner is democratising access to a sector that has historically only been available to the largest global financial institutions,” explains Berris.