FrieslandCampina supplies consumer products, such as milk, yogurt, cheese, infant nutrition and desserts, products for the professional market, such as cream and butter products, ingredients and semi-finished products for producers of infant nutrition, the food industry and the pharmaceutical sector. The company has branches in 38 countries and exports to more than one hundred countries worldwide.
As FrieslandCampina’s Corporate Treasury department we wanted to increase visibility on our global banking charges. Due to the global footprint of the company and the somewhat scattered banking landscape the real overview of banking charges was missing. As most cash management relationships have been started after a strict RFP process we did not expect to realize a major cost saving but were merely focused on a confirmation that our price arrangements were at fair market price. The very thorough analysis of all the many different bank charges showed that most cost items were indeed priced at fair market but there were a few remote countries were unexpected high and unreasonable charges popped up.
With the help of BB Merchant Services Central Europe, we were able to negotiate substantial lower prices or even waive some of the costs that were charged. So finally we ended up with a thorough analysis of our banking charges and some unexpected substantial savings as very welcome surprises. Therefore it is very helpful to have a party as BB Merchant Services as partner to support you with their expertise in a world were banks are very creative in inventing all kind of charges and multiple of names for the same services in order to create intransparency
Jeroen Brieffies, Head of Treasury Operations
FrieslandCampina