Bank Accounts

Corporate Treasury in: Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Ethiopia, Mozambique, Rwanda

Report date: 
8 Jul 2026

Commentary

East Africa is not often in the news – and that is probably a good thing. Kenya and Tanzania are both well known tourist destinations, which also have extensive tea plantations. Together, these provide a relatively steady inflow of hard currency. With Uganda, they compose former British East Africa, which, since its independence in the early 1960s, has generally been relatively stable – Uganda being the occasional exception.

In this call, peers mostly discussed these three countries, but also extended the scope to include the “East African corridor”, including Ethiopia, Mozambique and Rwanda. These countries have seen horrific violence in recent decades, but, with the exception of Ethiopia, their economic outlook is improving. 

Even if business is not booming, East Africa, while challenging for treasury practitioners, is not amongst the world’s most difficult regions. There are no formal exchange controls, though hard currency can occasionally be in short supply, especially in Tanzania, Mozambique and Ethiopia. Peers apply several different business models, some of which involve being paid offshore in euros or US dollars: this does not seem to cause any issues. One peer has a non resident entity in Kenya, which also acts as regional headquarters. One peer had made their Ugandan entity dormant, but still found business there was growing, so they have now re-activated the local entity. 

Another peer has production facilities in Ethiopia, Mozambique and Rwanda, and runs import operations in Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania. They find Rwanda works well for treasury operations, with Ethiopia and Mozambique being more challenging, especially when it comes to sourcing hard currency. 

 

Banking in the region, however, can be more difficult....Please Login / Register to read the rest of this Commentary.

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Topics covered in this report: 
Bank Accounts, Bank Relationships, Cash - deposits, Cash Repatriation, Wallets, PSP, FX, Collections - domestic, Funding, CustomerFinance, connectivity
Service providers discussed in this report: 
Standard Bank, Standard Chartered, ABSA, Stanbic, Ecobank, M-pesa, Commercial Bank of Ethiopia, Afrexim Bank, Access Bank, Vista

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Geopolitics and Contingency Bank Relationships in Corporate Treasury

Report date: 
11 May 2026

Commentary

How to run an efficient global treasury and cash management system, while keeping risk under control?

This dilemma is becoming increasingly acute. In the past, treasurers focused mainly on counterparty risk – the danger that a bank might fail, or decide to exit a specific market. This risk is still present, but today the real concern is geopolitics. One month before this call, we held a session on banking in the Gulf and the Middle East, where the peers had been happy with progress in cash management, banking systems and the economy. By the time this call took place, they were worrying about the physical safety of their teams in the region, and the very uncertain outlook.

As one peer put it: by centralising cash management and reducing banking relations, we have moved the risk from the individual banks to the system.

Traditionally, risk is managed by building redundancy. If you sell healthcare products into Russia or Iran, you are usually exempted from trade sanctions. But your core relationship international banks are not – so it is prudent to set up accounts with banks you can fall back on if needed.

This makes sense, but it brings challenges. In addition to increasing KYC requirements, the extra accounts often require local teams, the banks are often difficult to integrate into global cash pooling systems, and the global banking spend is further diluted, making it even harder to manage wallet share amongst the banks.

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Topics covered in this report: 
Bank Accounts, Bank Relationships, Political Risk, Risk - counterparty, Sanctions
Service providers discussed in this report: 
Citi, HSBC, JP Morgan

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Usages of AI in Corporate Treasury

Report date: 
1 Apr 2026

AI is everywhere. It dominates many business discussions – and, of course, is having a profound impact on the equity and funding markets. 

In treasury, the main focus so far has been on cash forecasting. This is a promising area: it is a real problem for treasurers, and some are reporting improvements. But it is complex, and the quality of historical data in many companies’ systems is an issue.

For this report, treasurers shared with us the increasing number of uses they are finding for AI. These usually improve productivity, and include various automation efforts, such as using the tools to generate and verify bank and capital markets agreements, as well as monitoring internal systems accesses. Increasingly, AI is being used to write internal software and bots to help with these tasks.

In turn, this is having an impact on the skills in treasury: increasingly, staff members and interns who can use AI tools are making a significant contribution. At the same time, IT policies, which were initially very concerned about potential data leaks, are becoming more open – and yes, most companies have one.

We are in the early stages of a journey which will change the way we all work. Find out more in the report.

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Topics covered in this report: 
AI, Technology, Netting, Bank Accounts, Intercompany loans, Capital Markets, policies

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Banking & Cash Management in Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates

Report date: 
18 Jun 2025

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Topics covered in this report: 
Bank Accounts, Bank Relationships, Cash - deposits, Cash Pooling - cross border, Cash Pooling - domestic, Cash Repatriation, Local ownership
Service providers discussed in this report: 
JP Morgan, BNP Paribas, HSBC, Standard Chartered, Bank of America

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Approaches to Investing short-term cash in Corporate Treasury

Report date: 
22 Apr 2025

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Topics covered in this report: 
Money Market Funds, Investing, Risk - counterparty, Bank Accounts
Service providers discussed in this report: 
Westpac, Bloomberg, JP Morgan, Bank Mendes Gans, spotfire, Blackrock, Cachematrix, FIS, 360T, Santander, Itau, Citi, Bank of America, Deutsche Bank, Credit Suisse, Pictet Asset Management

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