Diamondback Energy achieves simplification via virtual accounts

Harnessing the Power of Technology

Highly Commended Winner

Diamondback Energy

Photo of Conner Williams, Diamondback Energy and Maria Crist, Goldman Sachs Transaction Banking.

Conner Williams

Treasury Manager

United States

Diamondback Energy, headquartered in Midland, Texas, is an American company engaged in hydrocarbon exploration in the Permian Basin.

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The challenge

Prior to this transformational project, Diamondback Energy, a highly acquisitive oil and gas company with a lean treasury operations team, faced significant operational inefficiencies and vulnerabilities.

Following aggressive M&A, including an acquisition doubling its size, Diamondback managed accounts across seven banks, resulting in extensive manual processes and critical lack of real-time visibility into its cash position.

The challenges included the management of 69 physical accounts required to support Diamondback’s treasury function. This was resulting in burdensome reconciliation, high bank fees, and significant administrative efforts, impeding the productivity of its lean treasury function.

Royalty payouts required a structure able to support disbursement and reconciliation of checks. While legacy technology created issues such as multiple ABA numbers and time-consuming manual journal entries for each account.

A provider outage proved to be the catalyst for change. The small team was burdened by high check volumes and complex, time-consuming reconciliation, underscoring the need for a modern, agile banking partner with advanced technology to help streamline operations, mitigate risks and enable scalability.

The solution

Diamondback’s highly acquisitive model required technology that could support its complex cash concentration structure across all payment rails to streamline and automate its treasury, providing a real-time, consolidated view of liquidity.

Goldman Sachs Transaction Banking’s (TxB^TM) Virtual Integrated Accounts (VIAs) offered enhanced flexibility, streamlined KYC and rapid implementation, crucial for addressing Diamondback’s aggressive growth.

TxB’s Online Web Platform offered an intuitive platform to manage its accounts, payments and reporting across all available currencies and rails, reducing administrative burdens.

Implementation showcased exceptional collaboration, completed in only 10.5 weeks for the two public companies under Diamondback’s umbrella (Diamondback Energy, Viper Energy Partners) with a multi-department team of seven – typically requiring six to 12 months.

Rapid deployment was achieved without falling behind schedule, including a thorough RFP process. TxB’s Digital Onboarding helped streamline the process, providing a smart, fast, transparent process. The complex, multi-layered cash concentration structure was overhauled with multi-layer VIA structures and virtual-to-virtual account cash concentration, ensuring operational continuity and routine reporting.

“Winning an Adam Smith Award is both a tremendous honour and a meaningful validation of our team’s commitment to excellence. This recognition reflects the dedication, innovation and collaboration of those who worked on this transformative project. I am proud to accept it on behalf of the entire team and grateful to work for a company that empowers us to pursue transformative initiatives and deliver lasting value.”

Conner Williams, Treasury Manager

Best practice and innovation

The judges commended Diamondback’s tremendous simplification of bank account management by applying virtual accounts.

Transformation and centralisation of virtually enabled account structures exemplify best practices, including significant account rationalisation – reducing physical accounts while managing numerous virtual ones. Reduced administrative burdens, manual reconciliation and bank fees enabled the lean team to support its growing portfolio.

The breadth and speed with which Diamondback onboards new entities required innovative thinking. VIA’s self-service account opening and closure enables full self-service agility for same-day account opening and closing, crucial to supporting growth. TxB’s VIAs offer an end-to-end solution that uniquely supports various domestic payment rails, including checks for royalty payments, effectively mimicking physical accounts. This includes multi-entity KYC with embedded payment file information.

Speed to market was critical to ensure Diamondback didn’t experience another operational delay. Digital onboarding allowed Diamondback to customise onboarding based on business needs, leveraging previously provided data to automate information gathering efforts, reducing administrative burdens.

Key benefits

Cost savings.
Process efficiencies.
Risk mitigation.
Number of banking partners/bank accounts reduced.
Exceptional implementation (budget/time).
Future-proof solution.
Improved visibility.
Increased automation.
Increased system connectivity.
Manual intervention reduced.
Reduction in errors.

Diamondback sought to achieve a centralised banking infrastructure that could support unparalleled efficiency and strategic agility. Diamondback required a solution that could mirror its complicated cash concentration structure while solving operational inefficiencies to support its lean treasury team.

Benefits included significant cost savings by virtualising almost 30 accounts, streamlining operational maintenance through native cash consolidation and single DDA infrastructure. VIA structures streamlined accounting, helping process payments significantly faster. While providing a centralised, real-time view of liquidity with automated account management and reconciliation.

Maria Crist

Global Co-head, Goldman Sachs Transaction Banking Coverage

Diamondback Energy’s treasury team proves that lean doesn’t mean limited – it means relentlessly innovative. By consolidating 69 physical accounts across seven banks into a multi-layered Virtual Integrated Account structure with Goldman Sachs Transaction Banking (TxB^TM), Diamondback achieved significant account rationalisation, real-time liquidity visibility and streamlined ERP integration – all in just 10.5 weeks. This digital-first approach reduced administrative burdens, allowing a lean team to support a massive, acquisitive portfolio. Their ‘work differently’ ethos exemplifies innovation at its best. We applaud Diamondback’s vision and are honoured to support their transformative journey.

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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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