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OVERALL WINNER

First Class

Relationship Management

Shell Treasury Centre Ltd

London, UK

Darsh Johal, Head of Global Cash Management

Stuart Madell, Cash Manager

Roland Peppink, Senior Project Manager

How would you respond if your bank informed you they are exiting the business?

Company profile

Royal Dutch Shell plc is an Anglo-Dutch multinational oil and gas company headquartered in the Netherlands and

incorporated in the United Kingdom. It is one of the world’s leading oil and gas companies and among the largest

companies in any sector globally. It operates in over 70 countries worldwide, has approximately 92,000 employees

and produces 3.7m barrels of oil equivalent every day.

The challenge

Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) was Shell’s primary cash management

bank for Western Europe and its main currency bank for CHF, EUR

and GBP.

In early 2015, Shell initiated a request for proposal (RFP) process for its

cash management business in Western Europe. It was about to hear

pitches from eight shortlisted banks at the request for information (RFI)

stage when RBS announced plans to wind down its international cash

management business. RBS’s deadline to close customers’ accounts

and operations across the region was the end of 2016.

Shell needed a bank to help it manage a smooth transition of a large

range of mature operational processes – across its business, treasury

and IT landscape – in a short space of time.

As Darsh Johal, Head of Global Cash Management explains, “We

decided on a like-for-like replacement; our selection criteria was speed

of delivery, reach and capability, a clear legal framework, robust and

reliable operations and service model, and the ability to migrate existing

payments in Germany to a SEPA card clearing solution.”

The solution

The number one priority for the project team was to manage the

transition on time and maintain the high level of operational and

process performance to minimise any business impact. The scale of

the project combined with the extremely tight deadline, encompassed

numerous challenges:

The mandate covered 16 countries.

Johal recalls, “A total of 350 bank accounts were opened,

necessitating over 200 KYC documents.”

Cash management services for 250 Shell businesses in Western

Europe also had to migrate from RBS within just 18 months.

The project covered a wide range of payment and collection

instruments given its geographical scope and Shell’s client base.

Each payment and collection instrument had to be assessed to

understand the implications of migration.

The countries in scope used 14 different ERP systems, each

requiring specific re-configuration, testing and deployment plans.

There were in excess of 2,400 test scenarios.

The solution also includes a regional zero-balancing liquidity

structure for the major currencies – EUR, GBP and CHF – with

over 300 sweeps activated.

Shell had 37 payroll payment solutions throughout the region.

It was critical that payment runs were closely monitored during

migration to ensure all staff continued to be paid on time.

Migration of Shell’s SEPA card clearing solution in Germany which

supports millions of transactions annually.

Over 100,000 direct debit customers were migrated by Shell’s

downstream business, having millions of transactions with a

multi-billion dollar value.

Best practice and innovation

This project centres on the first class relationship between Shell and

its bank which is emphasised by the manner in which the project was

planned, resourced and executed. Many aspects are now part of

Citi’s best practice template for client implementations.

There were over 350 staff at Shell and 68 project team members in

Citi involved in the project.

Shell’s Tim Ford, VP Offer to Cash, comments, “This is a great example

of collaboration within Shell and with Citi. It’s great to see a major project

deliver on time whilst maintaining a focus on operational excellence.”

Key benefits

The greatest benefit is that the project was completed

according to plan and with minimal disruption to

the business.

The solution met all the project objectives – all bank

accounts, payments and collections for every business

were migrated according to the original schedule –

and within budget.

All 29 phases successfully achieved each of Shell’s

scheduled go-live dates.

Barbara Harrison, Citi, Darsh Johal, Roland Peppink and Stuart Madell, Shell Treasury Centre Ltd

Winner video interview treasurytoday Adam Smith Awards © August 2017 | 11