In the insurance, construction, and real-estate sectors, the treasurer’s role comes with distinct constraints that make optimizing cash-management services and fees more intricate. For Lucie Kunešová, Associate Director – Cash Management Advisory at Redbridge, these specifics are not a handicap but, on the contrary, a signal of greater savings potential in cash management. Proof by example.
Let’s talk about companies that, by nature, manage dozens or even hundreds of separate bank accounts—insurers, real estate groups, and construction players with multiple worksites. How should these segregated accounts be integrated into a fee-optimization strategy?
— These sectors do indeed face a particular issue: they accumulate bank accounts. In insurance, funds often must be separated by entity or by product to comply with regulatory ring-fencing obligations. In real estate or construction, each project may have its dedicated structure—sometimes a joint venture—with a specific bank account to isolate the project’s flows. The result is a multitude of local accounts, spread across different banks, which makes cash centralization very complicated. The outcome is not only heavy administration (constantly opening and closing accounts, managing signatory powers, etc.) but also a rising overall cost of cash management—since each account generates account maintenance fees, an account activity fee, and transaction-related charges. For the treasurer, fully inventorying and controlling these dispersed costs is a real challenge. The good news is that this is often an under-exploited source of savings. The first step—basic in appearance—is to inventory and consolidate all pricing terms for these segregated accounts: collect contracts for each legal entity, gather the fee schedules applied by each bank, and analyze transaction volumes on each account. It is meticulous work, but indispensable to see where the anomalies and levers are.
Do you have concrete examples?
— Yes. For NGE, a major construction group operating hundreds of worksites, we mapped cash-management costs across 23 banks and nearly 500 active accounts. By analyzing volumes and fees by bank, banking group, and service type, we established the client’s true cash-management cost. This snapshot became the foundation for a simultaneous consultation with all banks.
At the end of the process, NGE reduced its cash-management costs by 65%. A key change was replacing the legacy “commission de mouvement – CMC” – a French proportional fee applied to commercial transactions debited – with clearer, more controllable unit pricing. The group also signed three-year banking agreements to lock in the new terms and secure the gains over time.
We have seen similar results with other construction clients. At Demathieu Bard, for example, more than 400 bank accounts across 21 legal entities were burdened by an outsized CMC fee in the historical pricing. Here again, a well-run renegotiation delivered a 55% reduction in cash-management fees. Concretely, CMC fees were almost eliminated (–80%) and account-maintenance fees fell 20%, while the billing structure was simplified to make day-to-day control easier. Another key lever was reallocating flows across banks: we helped the client redistribute volumes among partners to capture the most favorable terms at each—without compromising security or service quality.
What is the key to success in these renegotiations within a decentralized Treasury environment?
In all these projects, we make sure to incorporate sector specifics from the scoping phase. For Spie Batignolles, for example, we had to take into account joint venture accounts and project accounts (SEP) specific to the construction sector. That means providing pricing terms adapted to these particular accounts, whose usage is often seasonal or one-off. The goal is for even these peripheral accounts—each individually small—to also benefit from optimized terms within the new negotiated schedule. The result is a downward harmonization of fees across the group’s entire banking perimeter. And in the end, results often exceed initial expectations, while strengthening Treasury’s day-to-day control. As one treasurer put it after our intervention, their cash management had become “more economical and more transparent” than before. This is a benefit not to be underestimated: optimizing fees goes hand in hand with better visibility for the Treasury function.
To conclude, can you summarize the approach developed by Redbridge for optimizing bank fees and services, and how it is tailored to the most complex environments?
At Redbridge, we study various solutions that allow our clients’ multi-account Treasury to be managed more effectively. The key is to have a holistic and dynamic view: combine the best of technology, market benchmarks, and human expertise to optimize continuously. This is how, even in complex environments—with multiple banks, accounts, and currencies—we manage to turn complexity into opportunity. Every account, every banking service, and every cent of fees can be discussed, while respecting existing partnerships. The payoff is threefold: substantial savings, increased operational efficiency, and better transparency for the Treasury function. The message to treasurers is an optimistic one: even if your organization is very decentralized or constrained by segregated accounts, there is room to maneuver. With a structured, global approach, you can regain control of your bank fees—and create value where, until yesterday, none seemed to exist.