Organised annually by Treasury Today, the Adam Smith Awards, now in its 16^th year, have become widely recognised as the premier industry benchmark for corporate treasury achievement. Earlier this month, the winners of the 2023 Adam Smith Awards were unveiled, ahead of the official ceremony, which will take place in London in June.

Having evaluated over 320 nominations, the judges were faced with the unenviable task of identifying the most worth project for each category – and Deutsche Bank is proud to have been involved in four winning or highly commended projects:

• Winner, Best Sustainable Treasury Solution: Henkel AG & Co. KGaA
• Winner, Best Emerging Technology Solution: Microsoft Corp
• Highly Commended, Treasury Today's Top Treasury Team 2023: Merck
• Highly Commended, Best Foreign Exchange Solution: Valentino S.p.A.

Deutsche Bank is delighted that its clients have been recognised across a number of categories – clear evidence that the work the bank is doing is moving the needle in terms of treasury innovation.

Deutsche Bank would also like to congratulate Siemens' Peter Rathgeb for winning the Corporate Treasurer of the Year award, with Siemens and Deutsche Bank’s exciting collaboration on real-time treasury and account virtualisation playing a role.

Promoting sustainability through supply chain finance
Henkel, the multinational consumer goods and chemical producer was awarded for its innovative application of sustainability and supply chain finance. As part of its commitment to control its carbon footprint, Henkel actively monitors and influences the sustainability of its supply chain through its procurement practices. To this end, Henkel approached Deutsche Bank to convert its existing supply chain finance (SCF) programme to a sustainability linked SCF (SSCF) programme, which went live in May 2022.

The SSCF programme takes a progressive and proactive approach to improving sustainability, allowing suppliers to discount their receivables against Henkel at an interest rate that is linked to their ESG score. Suppliers with better ESG scores pay lower margins, providing a financial incentive to improve their sustainable behaviour. This will aggregate to an improvement in sustainability within Henkel’s larger external value chain. For more information on the award-winning solution, read our flow case study here or watch the video here: https://youtu.be/3POCIjvekKw.

"Henkel takes its role as a global citizen seriously,” commented Christina Gnad, Global Head of Working Capital Management, Deutsche Bank. “Through this global supply chain finance programme, we are helping Henkel to deploy its strong credit rating and the power of its balance sheet to provide suppliers with sustainable funding and financial stability.”

WINNER, BEST EMERGING TECHNOLOGY SOLUTION:
Microsoft Corp

Deutsche Bank was named as one of nine partners alongside SWIFT, Infosys, Citibank, Standard Chartered, Toronto Dominion Securities, HSBC, Societe Generale and Amplify Consulting Partners.

HIGHLY COMMENDED, TREASURY TODAY'S TOP TREASURY TEAM 2023: Merck

Deutsche Bank was named as one of four partners alongside FIS, Finastra and BNP Paribas.

Foreign exchange with style
Valentino Korea – the Seoul-based retail arm of Italian luxury fashion house Valentino S.p.A. – was commended by the judges for its seamless implementation of a new FX solution. To help support plans for growth across Asia, Valentino wanted to improve the efficiency of its treasury processes – in particular, the wire transfer and FX conversion between its local subsidiary in Korea and its headquarters in Italy.

With the help of Deutsche Bank, Valentino managed to transform its FX operations in Korea by implementing a bespoke “accountless” FX workflow solution. Specifically, Deutsche Bank set up a virtual account in Korea for its headquarters, Valentino S.p.A., eradicating the need for a manual transfer between Korea and Italy.

“A key aim for treasurers today is to try and keep their number of current accounts as low as possible," commented Gudrun Bieche, Cash Management Sales, Deutsche Bank. “To avoid the additional effort involved in setting up and maintaining an onshore account, we were able to implement an accountless solution for Valentino based on a virtual account.”

Deutsche Bank would like to extend its congratulations to clients that have been recognised and give our thanks to the Treasury Today team for its work on this highly regarded awards programme.

A full list of award winners can be found here.