Following a significant transformation, spinning off from GE, the team faced the critical task of establishing a best in class cash pooling and treasury solution to address several challenges.

With over 50 accounts requiring daily management to prevent excess or deficit balances, the team operated under strict cash forecasting and real-time decision-making pressure. Every bank transfer required dual approval every morning, to meet the strict cut-off times.

The team faced major concerns as significant value was lost through regular AUD and NZD to USD swaps to place deposits. These conversions incurred recurring forward costs. The previous structure led to avoidable losses of approximately US$600,000 p.a., which could be recaptured by transitioning to automatic local currency yield products in the new setup. Liquidity shortfalls in Australia and New Zealand led to insufficient funds being available that threatened the seamless execution of payments. Operational agility was hindered and cost ~US$30,000 p.a.

Dependency on multiple banking partners for timely funding of accounts to meet tight cross-border cut-offs caused stress and increased the risk of payment failures. On average, at least five payments per month, including critical ones, were missed or critically funded at the last minute, posing implications beyond just the financial costs.

Multiple sweeps between banks and locations in the previous structure created valuable time costs but more importantly, there were often instances where the funds would be debited from one bank without timely credit to the other. These issues resulted in overdraft instances up to US$4,000 each time, creating stakeholder friction.