Europe's treasurers are looking to maximise the regional centralisation of cash balances as the process is considered best practice in the market, according to a survey carried out on behalf of ABN AMRO. Seventy percent of treasurers are looking to use multi-bank cash concentration services in the belief they will achieve improved operational efficiency, a reduced workload and higher returns from larger cash balances. Almost half the survey's respondents choose to centralise cash balances across Europe while 61% indicated that pan-European centralisation was preferable to a country-by-country basis.
"An efficient liquidity structure is a key element of effective working capital management," says Phillip Lindow, executive director of liquidity management at ABN. "Multi-bank cash concentration services make it possible to bring more countries and markets into such structures, enabling corporate treasurers to maximise available balances without increasing their workload."
One result of regional cash concentration is a reduction in the number of bank partners used by corporate treasurers; the majority of survey respondents hold liquidity with one-to-five banks, while corporates with country or operating subsidiary controlled treasuries hold liquidity with six-to-20 banks.