Speak to any MNC treasury team overseeing scattered, global subsidiaries and they invariably share the same goal – if they haven’t already achieved it: visibility and control of the local treasury function.

So it was for the treasury team at French group Imerys, seeking a better grip on its Egyptian operations. “Of key importance in addressing our local operational needs, was the ability to improve visibility and control from Egypt back to our treasury HQ in France,” says Osama El Amari, Chief Accountant, explaining how he oversaw a digital overhaul to automate and streamline the Egyptian treasury function.

Imerys’ ability to oversee its Egyptian operation was handicapped by a long list of issues. Manual processes governed vendor and salary payments using ACH and RTGS transaction rails. Similarly, cheque issuances were also manual. Inward cheque payments required safe keeping within the office and necessitated daily visits to the branch, statutory payments spanning government taxes, social insurance and customs payments also required copious form filling in branch because the company couldn’t connect to the governments e-finance portal – Corporate Payments System (CPS).

Elsewhere, managing payables and receivables reconciliation was time consuming and prone to error and risk – statements were printed and manually cross-referenced to track inward collections against sales.

The company was also hindered by limited reporting options. Imerys could not automatically pull MT940s from its incumbent banks, which also meant the team could not automatically reconcile and report back to France HQ. The subsidiary had no connectivity via their existing banking platform and were unable to benefit from straight through processing (STP).

Lastly, the company had multiple banking partners meaning accessing daily cash positions required multiple logins, passwords and tokens. Nor did the company’s local banking partner have an international footprint or digital capabilities, which limited the options for an international subsidiary operating in Egypt.