Commentary
Cash pooling and sweeping is one of the most basic and widespread tools in modern cash management. To the extent allowed under exchange controls and regulations, it is important to bring all the liquidity into a central entity, and avoid having cash balances earning little to no interest, while some entities are borrowing and paying spreads.
By definition, this central entity performs the functions of a bank: it is taking deposits and making loans - for tax reasons, it needs to pay and charge interest on the balances. This also means it faces a lot of the challenges banks have: it needs good systems to track the loan balances and calculate and post the interest, and it also needs to ensure any FX exposures are properly identified and managed. Of course, it also needs to have access to sufficient group funding to meet the group’s net cash needs.
Unsurprisingly, once they have set up the relevant structures, many treasurers find they can be used to provide additional functions: POBO (Payment On Behalf Of) is quite common; ROBO (Receive On Behalf Of) exists but is less frequent. Some, but not all, have used their in-house banks to eliminate intercompany netting: any transaction between group companies gives rise to a debit or a credit to their accounts with the IHB, which will be cash settled or not in accordance with regulations and cash management policies. The central entity can also be used for FX management, executing trades with the market and doing back-to-back intercompany hedges.
In this call, peers went through the systems they use, and gave a frank assessment of the benefits and drawbacks of IHBs – it is not all plain sailing.
To read the rest of this commentary - please Log In or Register for basic membership (free)
