Citi Perspectives Fall 2023: Transforming Treasury

| 37 About GoTo Group GoTo Group is the largest digital ecosystem in Indonesia, with a mission to “empower progress” by offering technology infrastructure and solutions that help everyone to access and thrive in the digital economy. GoTo’s ecosystem comprises on-demand transport, e-commerce, food and grocery delivery, logistics and fulfillment, and financial services through the Gojek, Tokopedia and GoTo Financial platforms. GoTo has experienced stratospheric growth since ride-hailing and payments giant Gojek and e-commerce firm Tokopedia — two unicorns — agreed to merge. Together, they became GoTo Group, the largest digital ecosystem in Indonesia, and carried out an IPO on the Indonesian Stock Exchange in April 2022. The group’s speed of growth, diversity of operations and marriage of two highly successful companies brings a unique set of challenges for its finance and treasury team. Not only has it had to support group companies’ rapidly evolving liquidity and risk management requirements, but it has also needed to bring together two distinct cultures and treasury infrastructures to equip the Group for the next stage in its corporate journey. Jacky Lo, GoTo Group’s CFO, and Rania Ali, Group Treasurer, talk to Citi about their strategic and operational priorities in transforming their treasury and finance function to meet the changing needs of the business. Q. The merger between Gojek and Tokopedia was a huge undertaking. How did you go about bringing together the two treasury teams, cultures and infrastructures together? A. One of our most important areas of focus when we brought together the two businesses was to develop a new, best-in-class treasury function that would combine the strengths of each organization, support the needs of the combined group, and position us for future growth. This was an end-to-end process, from updating our treasury policies, procedures and technology, to developing a robust financial risk management framework and a revised organizational structure that could meet the current and future needs of the business. To start this process, we worked with our partner bank Citi to perform a “health check” on Gojek and Tokopedia’s existing treasury activities using its Treasury Diagnostics tool, and provide a comparison with peer organizations. This was a really helpful process in helping us to identify focus areas and establish priorities. Q. Havingmanaged the immediate requirements of themerger, GoTo Group quickly carried out an IPO on the Indonesia Stock Exchange (“IDX”). What were the unique characteristics of the IPO and howdid you support it? A. Our IPO, valued at $1.1 billion, was one of the biggest IPOs globally in 2021 – 2022, bringing together two household names, Gojek and Tokopedia, to formGoTo, Indonesia’s largest digital ecosystem. GoTo’s ecosystem is designed around supporting consumers’ needs from end-to-end in today’s and tomorrow’s digital world. This includes on-demand transport, e-commerce, food and grocery delivery, logistics and fulfillment, and financial services through the Gojek, Tokopedia and GoTo financial platforms. Treasury’s credibility in the IPO was essential given the critical role of payments and collections in facilitating and connecting this entire ecosystem. In addition, treasury was pivotal to the IPO itself by enabling and monitoring the flow of funds during the listing process. During this period, the need for treasury to have access to digital capabilities to access timely, complete and accurate data became apparent. Industry spotlight: HowGoTo Groupmanaged a blockbuster merger and the world’s largest tech IPO