Winning Ways

BNP Paribas Pushes New Treasury Boundaries

BEST BANK FOR CASH & LIQUIDITY MANAGEMENT

Europe

BEST BANK FOR TRADE & FSCM

Global Bank of the Year

TREASURY4GOOD AWARDS

Global Bank of the Year for Sustainable Finance

With multiple awards under its belt from TMI’s 2020 season, BNP Paribas is clearly on a winning streak. Here’s a taste of the bank’s current successes – which extend from supply chain innovations to sustainable solutions, and corporate client success stories.

As winner of Best Bank Trade and FSCM – Global Bank of the Year BNP Paribas offers plenty of evidence of its broad knowledge and extensive experience across the trade space. The bank’s global network encompasses more than 100 trade centres and 350 experts around the world. Referred to as its ‘One Bank’ set-up, clients have access to homogenous solutions and financing options across 60 countries but with local offers and tailored on-the-ground expertise.

BNP Paribas supports clients in even the most complex situations, providing a full range of trade finance and receivables solutions. However, a key differentiator for BNP Paribas in this space is its corporate and social responsibility strategy, including a strong focus on sustainability.

This yields results. For example, the bank being appointed mandated lead arranger and sustainability global advisor for Siemens Gamesa’s €600m inaugural sustainability-linked syndicated guarantee facility to develop an offshore windfarm.

BNP Paribas’ commitment to making a positive impact is why it also takes the T4G – Global Bank of the Year for Sustainable Finance. Ranked first in the CAC 40 by EcoAct for its climate commitments, BNP Paribas’ product set is increasingly influential, its Sustainable Working Capital System, for example, delivers sustainable trade finance and working capital solutions to support clients on their own sustainability journeys. ClimateSeed, its digital carbon offsetting platform supports client emission reduction projects. The bank’s innovative approach is further demonstrated through the first ever EMEA Sustainable Deposit scheme, a collaboration with client Unilever announced in November 2020.

Since the Covid-19 pandemic began, BNP Paribas has led or supported 24 social bond transactions, totalling $13.6bn. In October 2020, it was bookrunner to the European Union’s €17bn issuance of social bonds helping to finance member states’ employment support programmes. The bank also arranged supermarket chain Tesco’s recent £2.5bn environmentally linked revolving credit facility.

With 150 corporate banking centres and cash management capabilities in 23 countries, with full access to all local and European payment and clearing systems, winning Best Bank Cash and Liquidity Management Europe acknowledges BNP Paribas’ importance in this field too. Its efforts were never more vital than during the ongoing Covid-19 crisis.

With US banks pulling back from lending to European companies, BNP Paribas has been proactive. It was not only sole underwriter on a $10bn credit facility for BP, but it also provided support to hospitals, medical research institutions and vulnerable populations, with an emergency support plan pledging €50m in aide worldwide announced in April 2020. BNP Paribas also set up AXEPTA Lynk2Pay, enabling merchants to accept many more payment types, supporting the vital shift to online purchasing.

Of course, a bank is nothing without its clients, and in the Corporate Recognition section of the TMI Awards 2020, BNP Paribas helped three clients to success.

With bank accounts dotted across Europe, largely resulting from several strategic acquisitions, Durban-headquartered Aspen Pharmacare (Aspen), the largest drug company in Africa, was facing low interest rates and rising debt servicing costs. It worked with BNP Paribas to create an innovative physical cash pooling solution, the first of its kind in South Africa.

This solution is a worthy winner of the award for Best Cash Pooling Solution. From a purely operational perspective, sweeping has removed the risk of manually moving cash, and Aspen’s cash position monitoring is also now carried out at cash-pool level, affording far greater visibility. Where large cash buffers were often needed to meet liquidity requirements, the new structure provides more flexibility and increased cash planning consistency. How well does it work? Since the solution went live, around €250m of Aspen’s cash balances has been pooled and used by Aspen‘s central treasury to make advance payments against its revolving credit facility (RCF), delivering interest cost savings of between 1.5% and 2%.

When Thomas Papier, Group Treasurer at global contract development and manufacturing organisation Fareva, arrived at the company some five years earlier, treasury didn’t formally exist. With the company expanding rapidly, with 39 sites across 12 countries, teaming up with BNP Paribas to put in place the essential cash management plumbing for a new treasury function, alongside leading-edge cash centralisation and optimisation projects, made good sense. It is a project worthy of the Best New Treasury Function accolade. 

Indeed, it has been a major undertaking, with the roll-out of a treasury management system (TMS) that includes SWIFTNet connectivity, across all of countries alongside projects such as bank fee harmonisation, and a working-capital-related project. This has involved multiple stakeholders and BNP Paribas has played a key part in ensuring good communication and full transparency at every step of the project.

The ultimate goal is to centralise all treasury activities at head office. Fareva has implemented an enhanced cash pooling structure, centralising cash through BNP Paribas, its main cash management bank. With the bank’s help and guidance, the fledgling treasury is looking set to become the agile and future-proof function it needs to be to support the group’s growth aspirations.

Finally, with the support of BNP Paribas, French health insurer Mutuelle Ociane Matmut, collected a Best API Project Highly Commended Award. Processing reimbursement claims into the thousands every day can be a huge resource drain, so for Mutuelle Ociane Matmut simplifying and automating the process was becoming a necessity.

The organisation approached BNP Paribas, which offered its new corporate real-time payment solution. Using application programming interfaces (APIs) enables automation of invoice processing, and the ability to make instant payments. Indeed, the company has become the first French health insurance company that allows for instant reimbursement of medical fees.

The project has yielded greater efficiency in processing and managing claims. It has also aided treasury forecasting, where information is immediately obtainable. APIs are just at the beginning of what can be done, but this project offers insight into some of the immediate benefits.