Citi

Corporate Treasury & Banking in Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Kazakhstan & Uzbekistan

Report date: 
26 May 2026

Commentary

The end of empires. With our usual exquisite timing, CompleXCountries held a call to discuss the Caucuses and Central Asia in the very week that China’s President Xi Jinping chose to remind the renowned and erudite classical scholar, Donald J. Trump, that this is an issue which goes back to classical Greece.

This region is not only the site of the ancient Silk Road, which China has been trying to revive for over two decades, but it has also changed hands between the Ottoman Empire and Russia.  Many populations still speak Turkic languages, and, as became apparent, Russian is still the main international language, despite the end of the Soviet Union. With recent events in the Persian Gulf, China’s Belt and Road initiative may still be transformative.

For most MNCs, the region today does not reflect geopolitical tensions: the countries are true “frontier markets”: in all the countries discussed – Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan – only one foreign bank has a presence, and that is limited to Citibank’s office in Kazakhstan. HSBC pulled out of Armenia in 2024. MNCs have to work with local banks, and need local teams to manage the relationships. Peers even have to use local payment acquirers. 

Economically, these countries are generally stable, but not booming. Azerbaijan is the exception with its oil industry. Hard currency is readily available. Remittances out of the region are an issue due to the burdensome bureaucracy which accompanies them, not because of restrictive exchange controls and shortages of hard currency.

One skill, however, is essential to manage business and treasury in these countries: an ability to communicate in Russian, which is still used much more in the region than English. Many of the local banks have web sites which are only in Russian, or have few, if any, staff, who speak English. Every peer on the call has at least one staff member who speaks the language.

Operating issues:

  • Many peers sell from an offshore entity. This simplifies the remittance issue: locally, they often have a representative office. Some peers manufacture the in region, but this is usually restricted to one or two countries.
  • Peers generally found the local banks to be quite ....Please Login / Register to read the rest of this Commentary.
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Topics covered in this report: 
Cash Repatriation, Hedging FX, FX, Bank Relationships, Investing, card acquiring, PSP
Service providers discussed in this report: 
Citi, HSBC, OTP Bank, ABB (Azerbaijan), Unibank (Azerbaijan), Kapital Bank (Azerbaijan), Adyen, KDB Bank Uzbekistan, Halyk Bank (Kazakhstan), Pasha Bank (Azerbaijan), Bank CenterCredit/BCC (Kazakhstan), Ipoteka Bank (Uzbekistan), Yapi Kredi, Ardshinbank (Armenia)

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Geopolitics and Contingency Bank Relationships in Corporate Treasury

Report date: 
11 May 2026

Commentary

How to run an efficient global treasury and cash management system, while keeping risk under control?

This dilemma is becoming increasingly acute. In the past, treasurers focused mainly on counterparty risk – the danger that a bank might fail, or decide to exit a specific market. This risk is still present, but today the real concern is geopolitics. One month before this call, we held a session on banking in the Gulf and the Middle East, where the peers had been happy with progress in cash management, banking systems and the economy. By the time this call took place, they were worrying about the physical safety of their teams in the region, and the very uncertain outlook.

As one peer put it: by centralising cash management and reducing banking relations, we have moved the risk from the individual banks to the system.

Traditionally, risk is managed by building redundancy. If you sell healthcare products into Russia or Iran, you are usually exempted from trade sanctions. But your core relationship international banks are not – so it is prudent to set up accounts with banks you can fall back on if needed.

This makes sense, but it brings challenges. In addition to increasing KYC requirements, the extra accounts often require local teams, the banks are often difficult to integrate into global cash pooling systems, and the global banking spend is further diluted, making it even harder to manage wallet share amongst the banks.

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Topics covered in this report: 
Bank Accounts, Bank Relationships, Political Risk, Risk - counterparty, Sanctions
Service providers discussed in this report: 
Citi, HSBC, JP Morgan

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Corporate Treasury: Approaches to In-House Banking

Report date: 
21 Apr 2026

Commentary

Cash pooling and sweeping is one of the most basic and widespread tools in modern cash management. To the extent allowed under exchange controls and regulations, it is important to bring all the liquidity into a central entity, and avoid having cash balances earning little to no interest, while some entities are borrowing and paying spreads. 

By definition, this central entity performs the functions of a bank: it is taking deposits and making loans - for tax reasons, it needs to pay and charge interest on the balances. This also means it faces a lot of the challenges banks have: it needs good systems to track the loan balances and calculate and post the interest, and it also needs to ensure any FX exposures are properly identified and managed. Of course, it also needs to have access to sufficient group funding to meet the group’s net cash needs.

Unsurprisingly, once they have set up the relevant structures, many treasurers find they can be used to provide additional functions: POBO (Payment On Behalf Of) is quite common; ROBO (Receive On Behalf Of) exists but is less frequent. Some, but not all, have used their in-house banks to eliminate intercompany netting: any transaction between group companies gives rise to a debit or a credit to their accounts with the IHB, which will be cash settled or not in accordance with regulations and cash management policies. The central entity can also be used for FX management, executing trades with the market and doing back-to-back intercompany hedges. 

In this call, peers went through the systems they use, and gave a frank assessment of the benefits and drawbacks of IHBs – it is not all plain sailing. 

 

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Topics covered in this report: 
in-house bank, Netting, Cash Pooling - cross border, POBO/ROBO, Funding, Hedging FX, Virtual accounts
Service providers discussed in this report: 
Chatham Financial, Citi, FIS, Wall Street Systems, Kyriba, SAP, TIS, SWIFT

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Corporate Treasury & Banking in Greece, Bulgaria, Croatia, Slovenia, Romania, Serbia, Kosovo, Bosnia & Herzegovina and North Macedonia

Report date: 
13 Apr 2026

The Balkans is a difficult environment for corporate treasurers. Regulatory complexity, FX controls, multiple languages and scripts and limited presence of international banks mean that work arounds are often required. For example, SEPA (the Single European Payments Area): requires international transfer fees within the area to be aligned with local ones -  Most countries now price cross border transfers as local ones; Greece does the opposite. As a result, internal transfers in Greece are prohibitively expensive.

 

Our detailed report covers Treasurers’ experiences and approaches to Greece, Bulgaria, Croatia, Slovenia, Romania, Serbia, Kosovo, Bosnia and Herzegovina and  North Macedonia.

 

Banks discussed in the report include: Citi,Raiffeisen Bank, UniCredit, BNP Paribas, Société Générale, Alpha Bank, National Bank of Greece, Piraeus Bank, Eurobank, Zagrebačka Banka, OTP Bank, Komercijalna Banka Skopje and  BRD Société Générale.

 

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Topics covered in this report: 
Bank Relationships, Cash Pooling - cross border, Cash Pooling - domestic, Notional Pooling, FX, Payments - cross border, Payments - domestic, payroll, KYC, Cash Repatriation
Service providers discussed in this report: 
BNP Paribas, Raiffeisen, Unicredit, Citi, Société Générale, Alpha Bank, National Bank of Greece, Piraeus Bank, Eurobank, Zagrebačka Banka, OTP Bank, Komercijalna Banka Skopje

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Bank Relationships in the Middle East

Report date: 
19 Mar 2026

This report covers:

  • Commentary and Key Findings - please Register / LogIn to access this free commentary - a subscription is required to download the full report, or it can be purchased individually -  Enquire here
  • Bank Presence by Country
  • Banking Strategy and Consolidation
  • Treasurers' feedback on banks
  • HSBC
  • Standard Chartered
  • Citibank
  • JP Morgan
  • Deutsche Bank
  • Local and Regional Banks
  • Saudi Arabia — Structures and Challenges
  • Cash Management and Liquidity
  • Technology and Digital Banking
  • Organisational Structures and Regional Treasury Centres
  • Experiences in individual countries
  • UAE
  • Saudi Arabia
  • Kuwait
  • Oman
  • Qatar
  • Jordan
  • Lebanon
  • Iraq
  • Egypt
  • Turkey

 

 

Topics covered in this report: 
Bank Relationships, Cash Pooling - cross border, Notional Pooling, Cash Repatriation, Funding, Political Risk, Cards
Service providers discussed in this report: 
Amex, Bank of America, Citi, JP Morgan, HSBC, Standard Chartered, Deutsche Bank, SABB

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Corporate Treasury - Bank Relationships in Latin America

Report date: 
3 Mar 2026

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Topics covered include:

  • Bank relationship strategy in Latin America
  • Balancing global and local banking models
  • Managing credit lines and wallet allocation
  • Bank market exits and entries
  • Service levels, pricing and appetite
  • Tax payments
  • Foreign exchange
  • FX documentation and use of proprietary platforms
  • Financial transaction taxes and tax payment processes
  • Payroll 
  • Brazil’s forthcoming tax reform and operational implications

International Banks discussed in the report include:

Bank of America, BBVA, Bradesco, Citi, Itaú, JPMorgan, Santander, Scotiabank, Deutsche Bank, BNP Paribas & HSBC

Topics covered in this report: 
Bank Relationships, FX, Payments - cross border, Payments - domestic, payroll, tax payments, Cash Management, Cash - deposits, Collections - domestic, Working Capital, Supply Chain Finance, Factoring
Service providers discussed in this report: 
JP Morgan, Bank of America, Santander, Bradesco, Itau, Citi, HSBC, Scotia, BBVA, BNP Paribas, Deutsche Bank, Rabobank, ICBC, Banamex, Banco de Bogotá, Banco de Chile, Banco de Brasil, Banco Galicia, Banco Pichincha, Banco Atlantida, Banco Nacional de Panama, First Bank (Peru)

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Corporate Treasury & Banking in China

Report date: 
10 Feb 2026

Log in / Register to read the latest CompleXCountries (CXC) commentary on Corporate Treasury & Banking in China has now been published. It adds to a growing archive of corporate treasury knowledge relating to China - Browse 18 commentaries with associated reports here - all sourced from detailed confidential peer discussions between the treasurers of multinational companies with operations in China - the report  includes approaches and experiences with:

  • Regulatory environment and regulatory uncertainty
  • Engagement with regulators and regional variation
  • Cross-border cash pooling frameworks (SAFE and PBOC)
  • Cash repatriation methods (dividends, pooling, intercompany loans)
  • Trapped cash and liquidity management
  • Use and limitations of cross-border and back-to-back loans
  • Decisions not to implement pooling and alternative structures (notional pooling)
  • Relationships with local Chinese banks versus international banks
  • Service quality and challenges with Chinese banks
  • Role and performance of international banks
  • Domestic cash pooling and cash reporting
  • FX management, interest rates, and bank competition
  • Onshore (CNY) versus offshore (CNH) renminbi markets
  • Short-term investments 
  • Funding structures (equity, intercompany loans, onshore bank loans)
  • Supplier financing programmes and associated regulatory/KYC issues

International banks discussed in the report include: HSBC, Standard Chartered, JP Morgan, Deutsche Bank, Mizuho, Commerzbank and Citi

Chinese Banks include ICBC &  Bank of China

Topics covered in this report: 
Cash Pooling - cross border, Cash Pooling - domestic, Notional Pooling, Funding, Money Market Funds, Investments, Supply Chain Finance, Bank Relationships, FX, Hedging FX, guarantees
Service providers discussed in this report: 
Standard Chartered, HSBC, Deutsche Bank, Citi, JP Morgan, Mizuho, Commerzbank, Bank of China, ICBC, amundi

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Banking in India: Relationships & Technology

Report date: 
16 Dec 2025

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The new CompleXCountries report on Banking in India: Relationships & Technology has now been published. The report is based on a detailed peer discussion between senior corporate treasury professionals from Europe and Asia in which they shared and compared their experiences with their relationship banking partners in India with a focus on how the Indian Government's digitisation initiatives are being experienced.

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The report can be purchased separately or is available via subscription - Enquire Here.

The report covers practical experiences with:

  • Digitalisation
  • Bank Relationships - pricing & performance
  • Global Banks
  • Indian Banks
  • Bank portals & services
  • Bank guarantees
  • FX
  • FX Hedging
  • Tax & Customs payments
  • Funding 
  • Cards / T&E

The banks discussed in the full report include: JP Morgan, DBS, Citi, HSBC, BNP Paribas, Standard Chartered, Barclays, ICICI, HDFC, Kotak Mahindra Bank and State Bank of India

Topics covered in this report: 
Bank Relationships, guarantees, FX, Hedging FX, Funding, GiftCity, T&E Management, Cards, Tax, Customs, Dividends, Royalties, Cash Repatriation
Service providers discussed in this report: 
ICICI, JP Morgan, Barclays, HSBC, Citi, DBS, BNP Paribas, Standard Chartered, HDFC, Kotak Mahindra Bank, State Bank of India, FBIL

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Corporate Treasury & Banking in Israel

Report date: 
3 Dec 2025

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The new CompleXCountries report on Banking and Corporate Treasury in Israel has now been published and is available to subscribers or can be purchased individually. The report is based on a detailed peer discussion between senior corporate treasury professionals from Europe, the Middle East and Asia in which they shared and compared their approach and experiences with managing their corporate treasury in Israel and compared experiences with different banking partners.

The report includes:

  • Integration with global treasury structures
  • Banking relationships - local & global banks
  • Language and system challenges
  • Withholding tax challenges
  • Local organisational structures
  • Cash pooling practices, domestic, cross border (physical and notional).
  • Local payments & collections
  • Funding
  • Contingency planning

Service providers discussed in this report include: HSBC, Citi, Bank Mendes Gans, Bank Leumi, Bank Hapoalim and  Mercantile.

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Topics covered in this report: 
Bank Relationships, Cash Pooling - cross border, Cash Pooling - domestic, Notional Pooling, Funding, withholding tax, Payments - domestic, Payments - cross border, Business continuity
Service providers discussed in this report: 
HSBC, Bank Mendes Gans, Citi, Bank Leumi

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