Citi’s Treasury and Trade Solutions (TTS) division today announced that it has been appointed by Shell as its sole bank provider for cash management services across 16 countries in Europe.

Citi will provide Shell with a ‘single bank’ solution, providing full end to end visibility as well as control and optimisation of its cash management requirements throughout the region.

Expansion of long standing relationship

Citi already has a long-standing cash management relationship with the global energy and petrochemicals company.  The new mandate will expand the relationship to include the delivery of cash management services across the region to support Shell’s Euro, Sterling and Swiss Franc needs. These include a suite of several hundred operating accounts in the three currencies.

Citi will also support Shell with an extensive range of domestic and cross border payment and collection instruments, including millions of SEPA card clearing transactions for Shell’s downstream retail business in Germany plus SEPA direct debits for customers across its downstream markets in 11 other countries. 

Liquidity management 

To facilitate efficient working capital management for Shell, a zero balancing liquidity management solution will underpin these services, delivered through a fully integrated technology platform.

Not surprisingly, Citi is rather pleased with this new mandate from Shell. Naveed Sultan, Citi’s Global Head of Treasury and Trade Solutions, commented: “Through the connectivity of our proprietary network we can offer Shell the visibility, consistency and safety of a single cash management bank in Western Europe, and drive more effective working capital management.”

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CTMfile take: RBS’s withdrawal from the large scale international cash management business really hurt several large MNCs, particularly Shell. They had focused most of their payments and collections through RBS and had driven them to deliver the services and performance needed. Although, Citi were probably the only viable alternative to deliver such a ‘one bank’ service across Europe, the scale of this change, of this new mandate is immense. We wish Shell and Citi plain sailing.