Agfa-Gevaert Completes First Phase of IT2 TMS Implementation
Agfa-Gevaert NV has completed the first phase of implementation of the IT2 treasury management system (TMS) to support its centralised cash, funding and financial risk management operations based at corporate headquarters in Morstel, Belgium. The first phase was completed within a period of just six weeks. PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), who are accredited IT2 implementation partners, participated in the Agfa-Gevaert implementation process.
Agfa-Gevaert treasury had to find an alternative solution when Citibank Treasury Solutions Group in Dublin, to whom they had outsourced certain middle and back office treasury operations, announced that they were closing down their business in the summer of 2009. Agfa-Gevaert took this change as an opportunity to review and optimise treasury operations. It was determined to re-centralise the outsourced operations, and at the same time to select and implement a new TMS, and to review its cash pooling and payment management arrangements. The Agfa-Gevaert project team selected IT2 to provide an integrated TMS solution, which would then support its new cash management and cash pooling structures.
“It was essential to implement IT2 under a tight timetable to eliminate the operational risk caused by the unexpected change of circumstances,” said Tom Van der Auwera, Agfa-Gevaert’s group treasurer. “The project achieved all first phase objectives by an intensive six-week effort by the Agfa-Gevaert/IT2 implementation team. We now have a robust, best practice solution in operation for integrated cash and treasury management.”
The IT2 solution handles banking business volumes relating to several hundred bank accounts at around 60 different banks, providing automated reconciliation of account balances, and gives the Agfa-Gevaert treasury team more time to focus on professional cash and financial risk management operations.
The second phase of the project will extend cash forecasting and bank and treasury reporting to Agfa-Gevaert’s global subsidiary network, using the integral IT2 NET module. Agfa-Gevaert’s treasury department is now evaluating a further extension of the IT2 implementation, which would support additional in-house banking services. The sum of these projects will centralise Agfa-Gevaert’s global treasury operations onto an integrated, transparent IT2 platform that will reduce operational risk even further. The completed solution will provide the high levels of treasury efficiency and effectiveness that can only be achieved through enterprise-wide real time visibility of cash and financial risk.