Cash management on foreign soil – sometimes, it’s better to go local
Cash management on foreign soil requires a different set of strategies. At the recent Treasury 360° Nordic 2025 conference, a panel of experts sat down to talk about the elephants in the room – India, Taiwan, Vietnam. These markets may present major challenges in ethics, regulation, and infrastructure for the firms that decide to enter them, but also big rewards for the firms that manage to succeed in them.
Flexibility has proven to be key for Swedish polymer material producer Trelleborg. Group Treasurer Jens Billberg shared that the firm tailors its strategies to the needs of the market. In India, it works with an intra-group loan structure; in Vietnam, it uses intra-group financing from Sweden, but has also set up local financing in Vietnamese dong to limit currency exposure on the balance sheet.
Danish energy firm Ørsted has chosen a local set-up in Taiwan, with a team member based locally handling the FX trading. Karina Sagild, the firm’s Head of Treasury Front office stated that this model is especially beneficial for dealing with language barriers and central bank approvals that remain largely manual due to regulations.
Don’t get trapped
Moderator Jan Dirk van Beusekom, Head of Marketing at BNP Paribas Cash Management, Trade Solutions and Factoring, pointed out that when talking about elephants in the room, trapped cash is a big one.
Lei Wang Giæver, VP Group Treasury at IT solutions firm Crayon presented her firm’s two-pronged, top-down and bottom-up approach for cash repatriation in India. The top-down looks “at the investment level”. “It’s very important to understand the business needs and what the ambition is in this market,” she says.
The bottom-up approach comprises two aspects: local financing and working capital. On local financing, she says, “I’m not encouraging everyone to get into relationships with many local banks, but you have to, in a way, because local knows local… I would also suggest you team up with a really good global bank in addition to the local banks.”
As for working capital, she shares, “Cash is the strongest currency you have. You have to mind your own cash flow. You have to understand what you are able to achieve from customers. And when you have reached a certain efficient level of cash flow, then you will reuse it to reinvest in the country.”
Panellists:
Karina Sagild, Head of Treasury Front Office, Ørsted
Lei Wang Giæver, VP Group Treasury, Crayon
Jens Billberg, Group Treasurer, Trelleborg
Moderated by:
Jan Dirk van Beusekom, Head of Marketing, BNP Paribas Cash Management, Trade Solutions and Factoring
• News from Treasury 360° Nordic 2025, at Stockholmsmässan on 22 May, is gathered here.
• And why not spread the posts in our LinkedIn flow? Sign up to follow if you don’t already – and share this post!
• Find here the main conference website, with the agenda.
• Download the 76-page event magazine here (including a packed 8-page agenda section).
• Many sessions appear in full as videos in the days or weeks after the event.