Crédit Agricole CIB: Global Cash Position System Using Calypso

Crédit Agricole CIB, the corporate and investment banking subsidiary of Crédit Agricole, needed to make strategic improvements in its front and back-office operations.

The bank was seeking a standard worldwide treasury solution for all of its back-office activities and real-time access to its cash positions across all of its front-office business entities and locations.

Accenture implemented a cash position management solution from Calypso, a global application software provider. The solution allows Crédit Agricole CIB to subscribe to cash flow projections on an enterprise basis, monitor cash positions in real time from multiple back-office systems, explain transfer histories and easily monitor and reconcile positions.

With Accenture’s help, Crédit Agricole CIB has improved the efficiency, productivity and performance of its treasury function dramatically. The sophisticated solution can help Crédit Agricole CIB more accurately manage cash flow projections, which can reduce risk and improve financial decision-making.

In its efforts to increase its competitive positioning and remain a high performance business, Crédit Agricole CIB recognized the need for strategic improvements across two integral aspects of its front- and back-office operations. Crédit Agricole CIB’s plan called for:

• Development of a standard worldwide treasury solution for all of its back-office activities to eliminate the inefficiencies and high costs associated with maintaining multiple systems.
  
  
• Establishment and delivery of real-time access to its cash positions across all of its front-office business entities and locations for hedging and other critical profit and loss determinations.

To this end, the bank decided to extend its usage of the Calypso Trading and Risk Management Platform. Using Calypso, Crédit Agricole CIB would be able to address the firm's functional and compliance needs on a global scale from a single platform.

Crédit Agricole CIB selected Accenture to help it achieve its high-performance goals based in part on Accenture’s deep skills with trading software packages, cost-effective delivery methods and an already existing partnership with the bank. After a two-month study conducted jointly with Calypso, a global application software provider, Accenture implemented the Calypso system as a cash position management solution.

Crédit Agricole CIB’s new Global Cash Position System allows it to subscribe to cash-flow projections on an enterprise basis, monitor cash positions in real time from multiple back-office systems, explain transfer histories and easily monitor and reconcile positions when an amount received does not match specific projections. The final cash management solution is a Calypso-based, multi-currency and multi-time zone platform.

With Accenture’s help, Crédit Agricole CIB has improved the efficiency, productivity and performance of its treasury function dramatically, further enhancing its position as a high-performance business. By automating and consolidating its back-office operations onto the new Global Cash Position System, Crédit Agricole CIB has gained advanced liquidity forecasting and cash management functions along with a real-time treasury view of its entire cash position.

The sophisticated solution can help Crédit Agricole CIB more accurately manage cash flow projections, which can reduce risk and improve financial decision making across the board. Despite difficult market conditions, Accenture met Crédit Agricole CIB’s aggressive budget and eight-month timetable. In turn, Accenture saved the company significant costs by utilizing an offshore team in Shanghai for approximately 60 percent of the project.