The presentation at BNP Paribas's Cash Management University in early December 2011 by Heiko Stangenberg, Cash Manager at Roche Denis Reneau, a SAP Treasury IT Specialist, showed the importance of group treasury focusing on being a service provider for the business. Heiko and Denis described how - using physical cash pooling through an in-house bank, streamlining their global banking arrangements, and focusing on standardization and automation of all processes - they improved the services offered to their clients and also cut costs considerably. Roche developed a global platform for all treasury-related processes, including cash management, trading and back-office, accounting and risk management, payment factory, and an in-house bank. This is a large-scale operation. Roche's treasury has 300 customers. They trade regularly in 45 currencies, have 1000 positions, and receiving 400 daily bank statements.

The overall benefits have been significant: cross-border payments have almost been eliminated. Most transactions are routed through the in-house bank, all cash flows have been centralised, and there is full control of disbursements.