ING Bank, Philippines and Bank Mendes Gans (BMG) closed their first mandate in the country with the International Container Terminal Services, Incorporated (ICTSI).
This Multi-Entity, Multi-Currency Notional Cash Pool was designed to allow ICTSI, an international operator of container terminals, to consolidate its cash held by multiple banks in different countries and currencies into a single platform, centralizing ICTSI and its subsidiaries’ cash globally.
The centralization of cash helps the client to utilize its own funds to the largest extent and therefore minimize external borrowings and relevant costs. The unique features of BMG’s cash pool also helps ICTSI to avoid intercompany loans by allowing each subsidiary to open accounts with BMG in its own legal name.
The mandate was closed as a result of the joint effort and close cooperation between relationship teams of BMG and ING Philippines. BMG – an 100% wholly owned subsidiary of ING – provided expert counsel and advice to ICTSI through several discussions with its legal, tax, compliance and offshore subsidiaries.
“This solution implemented with ING and BMG further widens ICTSI’s liquidity management tools aimed at simultaneously supporting our capital expenditure and deleveraging programs,” said Rafael Consing, SVP and CFO of ICTSI.
“We thank ICTSI for their trust in us. As a banking partner to ICTSI, we are pleased to be able to help them find an efficient way to manage their funds. Moving forward, we envision that this cash pool solution by ING and BMG could be extended to more Philippine corporates with wide international footprint,” said Jun Palanca, head of Wholesale Banking at ING Bank, Philippines. ING’s announcement of this first-of-its-kind transaction follows their recent celebration of 32 years in the Philippines, held at the Manila Polo Club last 27th of October. The financial institution recapped over three decades of achievements and steps towards climate action and sustainable business in the realm of banking, as well as plans of the same for the future.
