At EuroFinance in Barcelona (September 16 to 18, 2026), Stefan Windisch, Roche’s global head of in-house bank, presented a case study during a workshop on cash centralization in complex geographies. He explained how the group optimized its payment flows to keep Indian rupee conversions to a bare minimum.
The in-house bank model
By the numbers, Roche’s treasury team manages up to CHF 10 billion in cash, more than CHF 30 billion in debt, and CHF 6 billion in FX exposure across more than 40 currencies.
To concentrate liquidity from around the world and better manage markets where cash cannot move freely, treasury relies on its in-house bank, Roche Finanz, which serves more than 250 group entities. Its payment factory is almost fully automated, and Roche Finanz is the only account provider for about 80 affiliates.
Here is how the model works. Affiliates trade goods and services with the group’s supply hubs, which operate in Swiss francs and euros, and are invoiced in their own local currency. Wherever possible, FX risk is shifted to Roche Finanz through intercompany FX (ICFX) trades. Roche Finanz consolidates these exposures and hedges them centrally with its core banks, so conversion happens centrally, not at affiliate level.
Intercompany payments and invoice reconciliation are handled inside the in-house bank, and parallel information flows allow large numbers of invoices to clear automatically.
Where the model reaches its limits
The model is constrained in regulated and restricted markets, and in countries with non-deliverable (NDF) currencies. In those markets, strong local sales build up large cash balances at the entity level, and that cash becomes trapped.
Here, the affiliate converts locally and then transfers hard currency under fixing agreements. Intercompany payments and invoice settlements run on a monthly cycle. Converting locally means paying the local FX spread and waiting on a T+2 value date, and customer collections stay out of the group’s reach for a couple of weeks.
Getting access to hard currency also involves a lot of paperwork. Preparing supporting documents for customs and central banks ties up local staff, and if anything goes wrong, the cash stays trapped even longer. “It very quickly becomes inefficient, costly and delayed,” Windisch said.
India: a textbook case
India brings all of these constraints together. The rupee is only partially convertible: it can be converted for current account transactions tied to commercial activity, provided the required regulatory documentation is in place.
Roche has three import-heavy buy-sell distribution affiliates there. They purchase the group’s products and collect their sales proceeds in rupees. The group also runs two export-oriented shared service centers in India, and many Indian suppliers work for more than one Roche affiliate.
Under the old setup, intercompany invoices were issued in rupees, but cash was repatriated in US dollars. Intercompany service invoices are settled through cash injections in euros, and supplier payments involve several currencies. Meanwhile, the importing and exporting entities generate rupee flows that naturally offset each other within the group.
Measuring the cost of conversion
These fragmented rupee flows created unnecessary FX exposure and trapped cash, and they left group treasury with limited control. Each Indian entity managed its own rupees and FX, and intercompany trade was settled gross rather than netted. Settlement reconciliation did not follow a standard process: the bank’s FX trade sat on one side and the intercompany settlement flow on the other. “We would make a payment but then notice that the value received was much lower than what we actually instructed,” Windisch said.
On the cost side, SWIFT gpi tracking showed Roche that a payment to India could lose up to 1% of its value to the bank’s conversion fees.
Keeping the flows in rupees
The solution came from one of Roche’s banking partners, which received regulatory approval in India in 2025. Working with that bank, Roche built a structure that lets it hold rupees offshore and manage them from central treasury.
“Instead of creating a hard currency flow for our intercompany payments from India to headquarters, we changed that and kept those payments in local currency,” Windisch said. Intercompany invoices and their settlements are now in the same currency.
The structure also validates invoices automatically against the customs system. The documentation workload has dropped sharply, and intercompany payments are now close to instant.
Toward an end to unnecessary conversions
Roche is now exploring using these offshore rupees to make payments into India, including payments to local suppliers. The goal is to eliminate every unnecessary conversion point. “Multiple conversion points are simply value losses,” Windisch said.