“The scope of what we can do with an IHB is limited to some extent, as complying with regulation in some countries is extremely difficult”Ĭathy Fields, Assistant Treasurer and Senior Director of Global Risk Management, Hitachi Vantara LLC Perhaps most importantly it also ensures that various governance requirements across the region are complied with, as these can – and do – vary from country to country and are also liable to change at short notice. Centralised Treasury activity has run from Hong Kong since 2014 and covers a range of services from operating the group’s payments factory and monitoring liquidity to providing a hedging strategy for FX. Siemens’ IHB is rather more established, observed Blair and Fungsanoh reported that operating from Hong Kong it covers the group’s activities in 15 countries across Asia. Hitachi had considered further extending the scope to include receipts-on-behalf-of (ROBO) but “once we began evaluating the basics that would be involved we decided that, at least for now, POBO would be enough and ROBO can wait for a later date”. The proposed scope is enormous and opens itself up to a multitude of complexities, she added – which required those involved to ask the basic question, “what are we seeking to accomplish with an IHB?” “We’re considering a single in-house cash structure, based in Singapore for borrowing and lending within the group, for FX, risk management and concentration of cash – and potentially also including payments-on-behalf-of (POBO) in the structure,” Fields revealed. The full extent of its proposed scope and structure has been under review, together with deciding which functions the group wants the IHB to encompass. Hitachi’s developing IHB, currently in its early stages, is planned as a major global initiative for the parent company in Japan, said Fields. What is your status with an In House Bank? Half were either already active (44%) with, or were implementing (6%), an IHB. Moderating the session was Managing Director of Acarate, David Blair, who opened with an online poll that asked audience members what point they had reached in their IHB preparations. They were joined by Michael Velten, a Tax Partner at Deloitte and E-May Neoh, Asia Head of Liquidity and Balance Sheet, Cash Management for Deutsche Bank Corporate Bank, Singapore. However, setting up and maintaining an IHB in the Asia Pacific region comes with several challenges and is “not for the faint of heart” warns Cathy Fields, Assistant Treasurer and Senior Director of Global Risk Management of Hitachi Vantara LLC.įields and Voravadee Fungsanoh, Head of Cash Management and Payments APAC at the Hong Kong office of Siemens AG, represented treasury on the panel of ‘Extending Your In-House Bank Services in APAC’, a recent webinar hosted by The Economist and supported by Deutsche Bank. In April 2021, flow set out how the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic had made centralisation a top priority for many corporate treasurers, while strengthening the case for using an in-house bank (IHB).
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