JP Morgan

Cash Management & Banking in Canada

Report date: 
24 Jun 2026

Commentary

Many people in the US consider Canada to be their 51st state. It often comes as a surprise to MNCs which operate there that this is not the case: in fact, Canada can present surprising challenges for businesses. Not only are there two official languages – and French is often mandatory for dealing with the government in Quebec - but laws and regulations can vary significantly across the thirteen provinces and territories. And, of course, the US is not all plain sailing for non-US MNCs, but that is a different discussion……

 

In this call, peers focused on two areas where they found Canada to be challenging:

  • Cheques: Canadian businesses are even more addicted to this payment instrument than their neighbours to the south – and the cutoff times are not always helpful. Most peers have established lockboxes: all the banks offer this service, but some peers still physically carry the cheques they receive to their banks.
  • Cross border cash pooling: this presents potential issues, as Revenue Canada can reclassify cross border payments as deemed dividends, in the absence of convincing proof to the contrary. The standard withholding tax on dividends is 25%, though tax treaties with most developed nations reduce this to 5% or 15%. It can be material.

From a banking point of view, most peers are able to use their global relationship banks to satisfy their needs: HSBC exited in 2024; Citi, JPMorgan and Bank of America were mentioned, but are not necessarily present everywhere. Foreign ownership of Canadian banks was restricted until 1989, and Canadian banking regulations are still quite stringent.

The discussion about the deemed dividend rule was lively and not conclusive. Most banks are happy to provide cross border cash pooling, but, as always, they are not prepared to offer tax advice – they are particularly reluctant to do so here. This has led several peers to either suspend their cross border pools, not implement them, or use workarounds. CompleXCountries does not provide tax advice, either: the following is a summary of the discussion, supplemented by Google searches. Any MNC implementing or managing a cross border pool should seek direct professional tax advice.

  • In the absence of solid evidence to the contrary, Revenue Canada can consider a payment to an affiliate outside the country to be a deemed dividend, and levy the applicable rate of withholding tax (WHT). For most peers, tax treaties would reduce this to 5% or 15%, depending on the country and ownership percentage.
  • This rule is not unusual.......... Please Register / Log In to read the rest of this commentary

     

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How Corporate Treasurers Approach Medium & Long-Term Cash Forecasting

Report date: 
2 Jun 2026

Commentary

There are few subjects on which all treasurers agree. Cash forecasting is one: everyone agrees it is difficult, painful, and rarely accurate. And that is just the “easy” part, forecasting the short term, i.e., up to three months. 

What happens when you reach out into the distant future – the medium and long term cash forecast? Surely, this is vital, if nothing else, so a company can plan its dividends and debt raising or repayment in advance? But it quickly becomes difficult, as techniques start to diverge. The best short term forecast is done looking at actual cash, and mapping out the expected receipts and disbursements. Beyond three months, this generally doesn’t work, as actual payments and receipts become less certain. People start to look at the strategic plan and try to work out the likely cash impacts – most treasurers view this as being less operationally relevant. Also, some people take input from the operating units and consolidate it, while others take a “tops down” approach.

In fact, the call started with a healthy discussion: why do a longer term cash forecast at all? 

  • For several peers, cash and funding was not a real issue. In this case, a good cash forecast may enable, say, $150,000 of saved interest expense by eliminating buffers and avoiding unnecessary borrowing. But, if it costs more than $150,000 to produce this good forecast, what is the benefit?
  • Other peers had really tight cash situations, were trying hard to maintain a favourable credit rating, or needed to meet the cash targets of private equity owners. In these cases, a good cash forecast was an operational necessity, and cash generation was often a significant KPI.
  • In all cases, the view of management was an essential consideration. Without full senior management support, a good process is more or less impossible, since it requires a lot of work and cooperation by different functions.
  • Group structure is a big factor. Where funding is done locally, a group cash forecast is not necessarily useful: in this case, what matters most to the group is managing local debt levels and the amount of cash being remitted to HQ. Local entities are usually motivated to do a good forecast.

So, how do peers handle this thorny issue? - Please Register / Log In to read the rest of this commentary

 

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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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Bank Relationships in the Middle East

Report date: 
19 Mar 2026

This report covers:

  • Commentary and Key Findings - please Register / LogIn to access this free commentary - a subscription is required to download the full report, or it can be purchased individually -  Enquire here
  • Bank Presence by Country
  • Banking Strategy and Consolidation
  • Treasurers' feedback on banks
  • HSBC
  • Standard Chartered
  • Citibank
  • JP Morgan
  • Deutsche Bank
  • Local and Regional Banks
  • Saudi Arabia — Structures and Challenges
  • Cash Management and Liquidity
  • Technology and Digital Banking
  • Organisational Structures and Regional Treasury Centres
  • Experiences in individual countries
  • UAE
  • Saudi Arabia
  • Kuwait
  • Oman
  • Qatar
  • Jordan
  • Lebanon
  • Iraq
  • Egypt
  • Turkey

 

 

Service providers discussed in this report: 

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Corporate Treasury - Bank Relationships in Latin America

Report date: 
3 Mar 2026

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Topics covered include:

  • Bank relationship strategy in Latin America
  • Balancing global and local banking models
  • Managing credit lines and wallet allocation
  • Bank market exits and entries
  • Service levels, pricing and appetite
  • Tax payments
  • Foreign exchange
  • FX documentation and use of proprietary platforms
  • Financial transaction taxes and tax payment processes
  • Payroll 
  • Brazil’s forthcoming tax reform and operational implications

International Banks discussed in the report include:

Bank of America, BBVA, Bradesco, Citi, Itaú, JPMorgan, Santander, Scotiabank, Deutsche Bank, BNP Paribas & HSBC

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Corporate Treasury & Banking in China

Report date: 
10 Feb 2026

Log in / Register to read the latest CompleXCountries (CXC) commentary on Corporate Treasury & Banking in China has now been published. It adds to a growing archive of corporate treasury knowledge relating to China - Browse 18 commentaries with associated reports here - all sourced from detailed confidential peer discussions between the treasurers of multinational companies with operations in China - the report  includes approaches and experiences with:

  • Regulatory environment and regulatory uncertainty
  • Engagement with regulators and regional variation
  • Cross-border cash pooling frameworks (SAFE and PBOC)
  • Cash repatriation methods (dividends, pooling, intercompany loans)
  • Trapped cash and liquidity management
  • Use and limitations of cross-border and back-to-back loans
  • Decisions not to implement pooling and alternative structures (notional pooling)
  • Relationships with local Chinese banks versus international banks
  • Service quality and challenges with Chinese banks
  • Role and performance of international banks
  • Domestic cash pooling and cash reporting
  • FX management, interest rates, and bank competition
  • Onshore (CNY) versus offshore (CNH) renminbi markets
  • Short-term investments 
  • Funding structures (equity, intercompany loans, onshore bank loans)
  • Supplier financing programmes and associated regulatory/KYC issues

International banks discussed in the report include: HSBC, Standard Chartered, JP Morgan, Deutsche Bank, Mizuho, Commerzbank and Citi

Chinese Banks include ICBC &  Bank of China

Service providers discussed in this report: 

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Banking in India: Relationships & Technology

Report date: 
16 Dec 2025

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The new CompleXCountries report on Banking in India: Relationships & Technology has now been published. The report is based on a detailed peer discussion between senior corporate treasury professionals from Europe and Asia in which they shared and compared their experiences with their relationship banking partners in India with a focus on how the Indian Government's digitisation initiatives are being experienced.

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The report covers practical experiences with:

  • Digitalisation
  • Bank Relationships - pricing & performance
  • Global Banks
  • Indian Banks
  • Bank portals & services
  • Bank guarantees
  • FX
  • FX Hedging
  • Tax & Customs payments
  • Funding 
  • Cards / T&E

The banks discussed in the full report include: JP Morgan, DBS, Citi, HSBC, BNP Paribas, Standard Chartered, Barclays, ICICI, HDFC, Kotak Mahindra Bank and State Bank of India

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Corporate Treasury & FX in Brazil

Report date: 
5 Nov 2025

The full report covers current practices in relation to the list below. To read our commentary (analysis and key findings)  please Log In or Register

  • Changes to IOF tax and its impact on FX, loans, and domestic cash structures
  • FX transaction practices 
  • Cross-border funding and capital structure considerations
  • Potential introduction of dividend withholding tax
  • Viability of including Brazil in a notional pooling structure under new rules
  • Use of boletos and e-boletos for collections
  • Adoption and growth of the Pix payment system
  • FX hedging, interest rates and BRL volatility
  • Use of structured products and offshore hedging
  • Investment of surplus cash
  • Payroll practices 
  • Tax payments
  • Working Capital Finance
  • Bank Relationships: local vs. global banks and service levels
  • Regulatory, tax and operating environment in Brazil

Service providers discussed  in the full report: Bradesco, Itaú, Banco do Brasil, Santander, Citi, JPMorgan, Bank of America, BNP Paribas, Bank Mendes Gans, Deutsche Bank, BBVA, Caixa, FXall and 360T

 

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How MNCs manage Corporate Treasury in Turkey

Report date: 
22 Oct 2025

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Topics covered in this report include:

  • Turkey’s recent economic conditions and inflation trends
  • Currency depreciation and exchange rate developments
  • Business and regulatory environment in Turkey
  • Tax structure and compliance challenges
  • Funding options and financing practices for companies
  • Use and impact of the Resource Utilisation Support Fund (RUSF)
  • Stamp duty and its implications for loans
  • Inter-company loans and cash management strategies
  • Hedging approaches and accounting under hyperinflation
  • Treatment of interest and foreign exchange transactions
  • Equity funding and capital management in subsidiaries
  • Cash pooling arrangements and restrictions
  • Role of international and local banks in Turkey
  • Bureaucracy and documentation requirements
  • Payment processing and local PSP requirements
  • Overall outlook and long-term confidence in the Turkish market

Banks discussed in this report include: Bank Mendes Gans, JP Morgan, Garanti, TEB, Citi, and ING

 

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