TUHF Leverages Kyriba for Mission-Critical Debt Management

Headquartered in Johannesburg, South Africa, TUHF Limited is an inner-city commercial property financing company that lends to local business owners with the vision and tenacity to develop affordable rental accommodations. However, due to its successful growth facilitating the regeneration of neighbourhoods in urban decline, TUHF has had to face its own financial challenges. As a non-banking financial services organisation that relies on borrowing capital to on-lend, not having sufficient debt to fund the business is still the company’s biggest challenge as it continues to grow.

In spite of the lending criteria being stringently based on the financial assessment and character of the entrepreneur, their rights to build and trade, property management experience, loan to value and affordability, the broad range of products available - including unsecured short-term loans, bridging loans, mixed-use loans to incorporate retail space and refinancing - means that business is booming with some clients borrowing and developing multiple properties.

At the start, TUHF would receive lending from development finance organisations such as DBSA and NHFC to help fund the business, but since 2007 following a restructure bringing in new shareholders, it relies on having a more diversified funding base in order to not be so reliant on single investors.

So with more complex operations and growing loan portfolios, TUHF Chief Financial Officer Ilona Roodt made the decision two years ago to shift away from spreadsheets and invest in a dedicated financial management solution to integrate with their CRM and loan workflow system. With 600 loans funded purely by debt capital, and with terms offered by banks and asset managers reduced to 10 years, it was particularly critical to have more sophisticated risk management functionality, with scenario planning and stress testing. Following a formal evaluation, local Pretoria-based Kyriba partner and established treasury outsourcing provider TreasuryONE was selected.

“The debt and risk management functionality was key to replacing spreadsheets. We need automated reporting to show repayments, monthly interest and capital forecasting. We were a new and developing treasury function, and we chose to work with TreasuryONE for its professional consultative approach and patience in helping us determine which solution best suited our needs. We chose Kyriba for its secure, cloud-based cash management solution and flexibility to integrate with our existing IT infrastructure,” explains Ilona.

It is the improved accuracy of their analytics that has had the biggest impact, saving time on the more basic tasks which has allowed Ilona to focus more on the strategy and higher level decision-making. Originally the loan assets and funding were maintained on separate systems, so crucially they’ve now been able to consolidate the two for a more meaningful view of current and future cash positions. Today TUHF is able to efficiently monitor its debt capital, bad debt and arrears, impaired capital and ultimately revenue and growth projections. 

Kyriba empowers financial leaders and their teams with award-winning solutions for cash and risk management, payments and supply chain finance. Kyriba delivers a highly secure, 100% SaaS enterprise platform, superior bank connectivity and a seamlessly integrated solution set for tackling today’s most complex financial challenges. Thousands of companies, including many of the world’s largest organisations, rely on Kyriba to streamline key processes, protect against loss from fraud and cybercrime, and accelerate growth opportunities through improved decision support. Technology analyst firm IDC recognised Kyriba as a global leader in its MarketScape for SaaS and cloud-enabled treasury and risk management applications for 2017- 2018. Kyriba is headquartered in New York, with offices in San Diego, Paris, London, Tokyo, Dubai and other major locations. TreasuryONE is the local reseller and implementation partner of Kyriba.For more information, visit www.kyriba.com.