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There is often discussion about how technology can have a transformative impact

on treasury, but in many cases, this simply refers to managing existing processes

more efficiently. In Worldpay’s case, with a relatively new treasury function

that has had to deal with enormous change both within the business and the

environment in which it operates, the effect truly has been transformational. Not

only has the treasury team been able to manage the growing scale and complexity

of the organisation, but it also continues to leverage technology to add value to

the business in new ways.

Building a future-proof treasury organisationWhen Worldpay was spun off from RBS in 2010, the company did not have a formal

treasury function, and treasury activities were distributed across other roles. In

2011-12, Worldpay set up a defined treasury team of four people, which quickly

extended to include bank relationship and account management. Since then,

the scope and depth of activities has greatly expanded, providing insights and

support to the business and improving the skills and business knowledge within

the team to meet ongoing business challenges. For example, since becoming

an independent business, Worldpay has embarked on a series of M&A activities,

together with an IPO in 2015, and created new subsidiaries which acquired

licences in the Netherlands, Japan, Hong Kong, Singapore and Australia. These

have resulted in a transformation from two main operating legal entities with

informal treasury activities to a highly structured, multi-entity, global business

with complex treasury requirements. As a result, the team is now comprised of

17 people, and is heavily focused on optimising processes and positioning our

activities to support further business change and expansion.

”

KYRIBA C A SE STUDY

Worldpay’s Fast-Track to Treasury Technology Excellence

Transaction Revenues: £451.1 billion

Transactions p/a: 14.9 billion

Market Reach: 146 countries, 126

currencies, with 25 offices

and 5,200 staff

Global GDP Accepted: 99%

“We use Kyriba to achieve visibility and control over our accounts and manage

our cash balances on a zero balancing basis.”

—Chris McLoughlin,

Treasury Manager, Worldpay

CASE STUDYWorldpay

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A catalyst for technology changeAlthough there have been a number of milestone events in the

development of the Worldpay treasury function, the trigger

for its technology transformation was in 2014 with the new

EU rules on interchange, which necessitated setting up a new

entity in Amsterdam and the division of its merchant book.

Worldpay already had 600 bank accounts in 14 currencies, so

the duplication of processes and reporting, which were mostly

based on spreadsheets, created significant additional scale and

complexity. Therefore, it needed a more integrated approach to

managing treasury across multiple entities.

Worldpay’s treasurer had experience with treasury management

systems (TMS) from a previous role, so they evaluated the

technology options that were available. The company ultimately

selected Kyriba for a variety of reasons. With relationships with

50-60 large banks, and a variety of smaller ones, maintaining

bank systems was extremely laborious and time-consuming.

With Kyriba, this process was simplified, and became a single

source of data with a high degree of confidence and auditability.

The system was highly configurable, helping meet initial and

ongoing requirements, as well as achieving a significant level of

process automation.

Worldpay also recognised the excellent support that the Kyriba team was able to offer both during and beyond

the implementation.

Business outcomesWorldpay has automated a large number of treasury processes

and has daily access to accurate and complete information across

its business.

“The team is also able to answer queries very quickly, which

saves significant time and further enhances business and senior

management confidence in treasury,” says Treasury Manager

Chris McLoughlin.

The benefits of implementing Kyriba extend significantly beyond

meeting initial process and control requirements, however.

Firstly, there have been demonstrable cost and control benefits,

such as alerting operational teams to overdrafts. Secondly, by

implementing a scalable, flexible system, the company is in a far

better position to keep pace with regulatory, market and internal

changes without the need to supplement existing resources. For

example, since 2014, Kyriba usage has extended across another

six entities for merchant cash management and forecasting,

involving over 1,800 bank accounts with more than 100 banks

in 50 countries, including relationships with both financial

institutions and alternative payment providers.

“As a heavily regulated company, pooling through our banks is

complex,” explains Chris, “so we use Kyriba to achieve visibility

and control over our accounts and manage our cash balances on

a zero balancing basis.”

“As all system actions are fully auditable, our treasury team, senior management, internal and external auditors now have a high degree of confidence in

our data and processes, and therefore the quality of strategic decision making.”

—Chris McLoughlin, Treasury Manager, Worldpay

“Since migrating our APAC entity forecasting process onto Kyriba in Q3 of 2017, we have calculated a saving of 5 hours per day whilst automating the required payments.”

—Chris McLoughlin, Treasury Manager, Worldpay

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The company is also able to leverage the system to add value

to the business in new ways. Internal cash flow forecasting (as

opposed to merchant cash flows) is one such example which was

implemented this year.

The treasury team is now able to forecast cash flow across the group, spanning more than 40 separate entities.

As a result of better completeness, timeliness and accuracy,

executives can make greater, quicker liquidity and risk decisions,

reduce cash buffers and anticipate operational or strategic cash

flow issues in advance.

Sharing experienceGiven the configurability of the system, it was essential to spend

time during the implementation setting up processes, rules

and controls carefully in order to achieve the expected level of

process automation and reporting sophistication. In addition,

the time spent testing the system using a sandbox version was

valuable, both in refining processes and ensuring that Worldpay

staff were familiar and comfortable with the new system.

Looking aheadWith Kyriba, Worldpay’s treasury team has been able to become

far more proactive rather than reactive, adding value to business

operations by leveraging the solution’s sophisticated insight

and analytics. Although Worldpay is already using a broad range

of functionality offered by the system, there is still a great

deal of untapped potential, particularly for a relatively young

treasury department. For example, while currently managing

intercompany accounting manually, it is considering migrating

this to Kyriba. Similarly, it may also use Kyriba to manage debt

structures and regular payments. Worldpay is currently still

going through the merger process with Vantiv, so the new

treasury organisation is not yet clear. However, given the benefits

it has derived from using Kyriba, and the growing complexity of

its business, Kyriba is likely to remain a fundamental part of its

treasury technology infrastructure in the future.

About WorldpayWorldpay is a global leader in payments processing

technology and solutions that enable merchants to

accept a vast array of payment types across multiple

channels, almost anywhere in the world. Since Worldpay

became independent of RBS in 2010, it has made

multiple acquisitions and was listed on the London

Stock Exchange as a member of the FTSE-100 in 2015.

In August 2017, Vantiv announced the acquisition of

Worldpay for $10.4 billion. The resulting company will be

the biggest payments company in the world.

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