Lulu has seen accelerated growth over several years and now operates more than 255 stores across the Middle East. The Group serve 685,000 shoppers daily from 130 nationalities (in store and online). Lulu had the most successful IPO in the UAE for 2024; this motivated the company to bring a global standard for the treasury functions of Lulu.

Lulu’s cash management needs are complex, for several reasons:

• Wide retail presence – beyond core retail markets in the Middle East, Lulu has operating presence in 25 countries worldwide.

• Broad supplier network – Lulu has global sourcing operations in 85 locations.

• High cash volumes – given its scale and industry, cash sales average AED28bn annually.

Despite its rise to regional dominance and complex cash needs, Lulu’s treasury team was managing a large number of bank accounts across multiple regions and banking partners. Lulu’s management identified this as an opportunity to enhance efficiency and to bring out a world class solution for the treasury function of the Group.

The challenges can be summarised as below:

• The treasury process was largely manual, management and reconciliation of a large number of bank accounts across multiple markets was complex and time‑consuming.

• Due to the large volume of data and the group’s widespread presence in over 25 countries, the availability of real-time data was a challenge.

• Optimising return on the Group’s total cash positions, which dispersed across multiple entities and locations.