The challenge:

China and India represent two of Mosaic’s largest and most crucial markets in Asia Pacific. To cater for expected growth and to operate more efficiently and effectively, Mosaic required a full spectrum of banking services, including cash management, asset and investment management, and trade finance.

Mosaic wanted an integrated and globally consistent cash management platform that would enable it to centralise all its banking operations for its India, Hong Kong and China businesses with a single bank, in line with industry best practices, to ensure globally consistent processes.

The solution:

The solution provides a globally consistent implementation and a services format that leverages a host-to-host platform using SWIFT, coupled with a secure and cost-effective file transfer system via FileACT that uses industry-standard message format. This enabled Mosaic to receive collections using industry-standard practices which provided a unique identifier for each of its customers so that Mosaic’s employees could better identify remitters and enhance reconciliation processes in each of its key markets. Mosaic leveraged J.P. Morgan’s system to enhance liquidity management services and install a host-to-host link as it designed a solution to meet its exacting requirements.

“In India, we initiated a comprehensive multi-product suite of services across trade, FX and asset management which supported importing goods for sale, and met market-specific trade facility requirements that included import finance and bankers’ guarantees,” explains Pradyumna Maheshwari, Director of Finance at Mosaic India. The company worked with J.P. Morgan to put in place fungible limits for cash, trade and FX that would better support the company’s ongoing working capital requirements.”

In China the solution allowed Mosaic to move its customer collections from existing local banks to a single provider, and installed a cash concentration structure that enhanced liquidity and leveraged a new, tax-efficient cash pool structure. The company set up a cash pool overdraft, a working capital loan, payables financing and a foreign exchange line in China so that it had additional options for managing its working capital more effectively.

Best practice and innovation:

Going far beyond simple enhancements to improve working capital management, Mosaic brought together expertise from its China, India and US teams, as well as input from J.P. Morgan, its banking partner, to design and implement a cohesive solution that leveraged industry-leading standards to enhance the effectiveness of working capital management at Mosaic and support its business growth.

In doing so, Mosaic implemented a highly sophisticated and marketleading solution that enabled its operating companies in its key markets in the Asia Pacific region to leverage existing global connectivity to automate its payments processes, achieve operating efficiencies, strengthen internal controls and ensure secure exchanges of data for critically important transactions.

Mosaic used this game-changing initiative to gain real-time visibility into cash balances and realise significant cost savings while reducing potential operational and compliance risks. By using an existing connectivity, the implementation time was substantially reduced, leading to faster realisation of benefits of implementing this market-leading solution. Mosaic’s foresight led it to include fundamental yet far-reaching changes in daily operations to develop vastly more effective practices for pooling, fund transfers, foreign exchange and trade finance.