Imerys digs deep for visibility and control of its Egyptian operations

The challenge

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.

The solution

Imerys began by selecting HSBC, renowned for its international reach as it’s single core treasury and banking partner, removing multiple banking relationships. Imerys’ was able to leverage HSBC’s international footprint and wide range of cash management solutions to help streamline its local treasury operations and cash management structures.

Imerys has transformed the status quo of its traditional treasury function to that of a state-of-the-art streamlined treasury management structure, that will help to maintain and grow market share across this important region of the company’s operations.

Best practice and innovation

This deal is a demonstration of how a full treasury transformation can be conducted for a local subsidiary of an international business.

By undertaking an overhaul of its current treasury operation to bring about significant digital transformation, this has helped Imerys to become a more efficient and effective treasury.

Digitisation has helped to achieve efficiencies in every aspect of the company’s treasury management function - from access to real-time information on cash flows, bank balances and financial transactions for accounts with HSBC, to improving the efficiency and speed of its cash management processes.

Key benefits

• Cost savings.
• Headcount savings.
• Number of banking partners/bank accounts reduced.
• Process efficiencies.
• Increased automation.
• Improved visibility.
• Errors reduced.
• Manual intervention reduced.
• Increased system connectivity.
• Future-proof solution.
• Improved key performance indicator (KPI) metrics.