MAYBE STATE-OF-THE-ART: INTERNATIONAL CASH MANAGEMENT

2

3

INTRODUCTION 5PAN-EUROPEAN PRESENCE OF UNICREDIT GROUP 6

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Cash Management initiated by the customer 9

FlashPayment 9

International Account Management 9

MultiCash 9

EuropeanGate 9

SWIFTNet for Corporates 10

Cash Management fully outsourced to the bank 10

Cash Pooling 10

PHYSICAL (EFFECTIvE) POOLING 11Zero Balancing 12

Target Balancing 12

Trustee Interest Calculation 12

NON-PHYSICAL POOLING 13Notional Pooling 14

Margin Pooling (Interest Enhancement) 14

Trustee Interest Calculation 14

SUMMARY AND CONTACTS 15

UniCredit Group – The first truly European bank 7

Cash Management and eBanking with UniCredit Group 7

INTERNATIONAL CASH MANAGEMENT 8

4

5

INTRODUCTION Quite apart from ensuring the smooth and efficient processing of domestic and

foreign payments and the financial transactions associated with cross-border trade,

centralised cash management is a challenging task for companies operating world-

wide, particularly when conducted on an international scale. The aim of this brochure

is to outline the facilities for international and multi-bank cash management currently

offered by UniCredit Group.

6

PAN-EUROPEAN PRESENCE OF UNICREDIT GROUP

6

7

UniCredit Group – The first truly European bank

UniCredit Group has a network of more than 10,000

branches servicing 40 million clients in 22 European coun-

tries. Its core markets are Austria, Germany, Italy and Central

and Eastern Europe (CEE). Its international network is made

up of branches, representative offices and banking subsidi-

aries in 50 countries worldwide.

The Group has a first-mover advantage in the European

market and benefits from the significant diversification of its

revenue streams, both in geographical terms and in respect

of its business activities.

We share best practices and product innovation

throughout the Group with the aim of enhancing the quality

and the standard of the services we deliver to our custom-

ers. We nonetheless retain the best local knowledge and

a constant and sustainable quality of advisory services and

products, and we pay special attention to maintaining our

proximity to regional markets. This is our way of creating

long-term, sustainable value.

UniCredit’s business approach is reflected in its business

divisions, which underpin its drive towards enhancing glo-

bal capabilities and sustainable growth. Global Trans action

Banking (GTB), the Group’s global business line comprising

international transaction services for international financial

institutions, trade and export finance, and cash manage-

ment, enhances the Group’s ability to serve its financial in-

stitutions and corporate customers. This goal is achieved

by leveraging the international network and supporting lo-

cal distribution with cutting-edge products and services in

trade and export finance, cash management and eBanking

areas.

Cash Management and eBanking with

UniCredit Group

UniCredit Group has gained a remarkable reputation as a

provider of cash management and eBanking solutions. With

an individual approach to our customers’ requirements, our

cash management specialists take account of the complete

financial value chain. Starting with an in-depth analysis of

processing and cash flow management, then moving on to

day-to-day electronic banking, and finally finding the most

effective solutions for managing group-wide European

liquidity positions and assets, we seek ways of improving

our customers’ current cash management activities and

catering to their specific demands to their utmost satisfac-

tion. With a focus on the European and CEE markets, cash

management and eBanking constitute two of the Group’s

core business activities. They bring together the various

countries where we operate while integrating matters such

as new technical, regulatory and political developments

including SOX1), Basel II and SEPA.

■ Austria■ France■ Germany■ Great Britain■ Greece■ Italy■ Luxembourg■ Norway■ Spain■ Switzerland

WESTERN EUROPE

■ Azerbaijan■ Bosnia and Herzegovina■ Bulgaria■ Croatia■ Czech Republic■ Estonia■ Hungary■ Kazakhstan■ Kyrgyzstan

CENTRAL, SOUTHERN AND EASTERN EUROPE

PAN-EUROPEAN PRESENCE OF UNICREDIT GROUP

■ Latvia■ Lithuania■ Macedonia■ Montenegro■ Poland■ Romania■ Russia■ Serbia■ Slovakia■ Slovenia

■ Turkey■ Ukraine

1) The Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 (commonly known as SOX).

8

INTERNATIONAL CASH MANAGEMENT The main focus of this brochure is on UniCredit’s international cash man-

agement services. We will therefore take a closer look at the products and serv-

ices available under this heading, starting with cash management initiated by the

customer and progressing through to the various possibilities for fully automated

cash pooling outsourced to the bank.

9

Cash Management initiated by the customer

FlashPayment

FlashPayment enables you to settle cross-border transfers

extremely quickly. Payments are credited to the beneficiary’s

account the day after execution. And it is not even necessary

to request this accelerated type of transfer. If the following

criteria are met, payments will automatically be carried out

at these attractive terms at no extra cost:

■ The payment order must show

– the beneficiary’s account number or IBAN (i.e. the

International Bank Account Number, if available) and

– the BIC of the beneficiary’s bank (i.e. the bank’s SWIFT

address).

■ The payment is either in euro or the local currency of

the beneficiary: FlashPayment transfers may not entail a

currency conversion on either the payer’s or the payee’s

side.

■ Both the ordering customer and the beneficiary hold an

account with UniCredit Group.

The UniCredit Group banks presently offering

FlashPayment are located in:

■ Austria

■ Bosnia and Herzegovina

■ Bulgaria

■ Croatia

■ Czech Republic

■ Estonia

■ Germany

■ Hungary

■ Italy

■ Latvia

■ Lithuania

■ Poland

■ Romania

■ Russia

■ Serbia

■ Slovakia

■ Slovenia

■ Ukraine

International Account Management

Our International Account Management Service offers opti-

mal support for your in-house cash management. Your for-

eign account-holding banks send your account statements

electronically (SWIFT MT940 end-of-day statements, SWIFT

MT942 intra-day statements) to Bank Austria, and they are

then available to you along with your domestic account

statements. On the basis of this information, for example,

payment transfer orders (domestic and foreign payments in

the country-specific format and/or in SWIFT MT101 format –

“Request for Transfer”) can be created using your electronic

banking solution to allocate your liquidity appropriately.

MultiCash

This international electronic banking software is a tool that allows

you to handle your international payments as cost efficiently as

possible and offers the perfect basis for cash management.

MultiCash provides you with information about all your ac-

counts held worldwide (SWIFT MT940, SWIFT MT942). Sev-

eral payment modules enable you to define domestic and for-

eign payments in the local country format or in SWIFT MT101

format. After you place orders on our bank server, which

functions as a single point of entry, they are distributed and

forwarded to the relevant account-holding UniCredit bank

for execution. Due to its modular design, MultiCash can be

tailored to your company’s country-specific needs.

EuropeanGate

MultiCash and many other electronic banking solutions are

connected with EuropeanGate. This technical platform ena-

bles us to be your single point of entry into UniCredit Group.

There is no need for you to send your payment transfer or-

ders to each account-holding bank in UniCredit Group your-

self. You just transmit them to us via your electronic banking

solution and EuropeanGate takes care of the execution, dis-

tribution and routing for you. EuropeanGate even converts

country-neutral formats like SWIFT MT101 or other common

industry standards (depending on the electronic banking

product) into country-specific national formats if necessary.

10

SWIFTNet for Corporates

Our SWIFTNet solutions provide you with direct access to

a global network which was originally designed for simple

bank-to-bank communication. As an identified and author-

ised participant, you have a direct connection to any of your

banking partners via one single entry point.

Depending on your company’s structure and needs, we

offer two SWIFTNet options:

MA-CUG (Member Administered Closed User Group):

Within MA-CUG, banks act as the service provider and en-

try point into the SWIFT network for their customers. Each

bank administers its user groups itself. Customers can be

members regardless of the legal form of their company.

Communication standards between the service-providing

bank and its customers are bilaterally defined. Of course, a

corporate can be a participant in more than one MA-CUG,

but a separate agreement has to be concluded for each

MA-CUG. By choosing Bank Austria as your entry point,

you optimally benefit from our network – with Bank Austria

as your service provider, you also have access to all other

UniCredit Group banks in this single MA-CUG.

Two messaging services are available for data exchange:

■ FIN:

FIN is SWIFT’s core store-and-forward messaging ser-

vice. Financial data are formatted according to SWIFT

message types, e.g. MT940, MT942, MT101, etc. The

use of MT101 is recommended for single high volume

and date sensitive payments.

■ FileAct:

FileAct supports non-SWIFT message types and bilat-

erally agreed formats between the bank and the cus-

tomer. Thus the Austrian payment standards PAYMUL

and DIRDEB as well as other separately defined formats

can be used for data exchange. It is particularly suitable

for bulk payments.

SCORE (Standardised Corporate Environment)

Contrary to the philosophy of MA-CUG, where SWIFTNet is

accessible for corporate customers via one or more finan-

cial institutions, SCORE itself is a large user group which is

administrated by SWIFT. Banks and companies which are

listed on a stock exchange (Financial Action Task Force;

FATF) can be members. Once you conclude the framework

contract with SWIFT, it is basically possible to communicate

with all SCORE member banks. Like MA-CUG, SCORE is

also available in the messaging services FIN and FileAct.

Cash Management fully outsourced to the bankCash Pooling

With UniCredit cash management solutions, all accounts

for a group of companies held in one or multiple countries

and with different banks at home and abroad can be com-

bined into a so-called cash pool. Balances on the various

accounts are pooled automatically. The different value dates

are taken into account with specific pooling procedures, and

the funds are concentrated on a master account specified

by the customer.

The goals of efficient cash pooling are the optimisation

of interest revenue and the reduction of the group’s internal

funding costs. We can offer you a range of automated physi-

cal and non-physical cash pooling solutions tailored to the

organisational structure of your company and your interna-

tional presence.

11

PHYSICAL (EFFECTIvE) POOLING

12

Zero Balancing (Effective Pooling)

Zero balancing is a procedure in which, subject to the agree-

ment with the individual banks concerned, account balanc-

es are brought down to a nominal level of zero on a daily

basis.

As the last entry of the day, the credit balances from the

participating accounts are swept into the master account

and debit balances are offset by the master account. Thus

at the beginning of a business day, a zero balance appears

on the participating accounts. The funds/depts are cred-

ited/debited to the master account on the next working day

(without a loss due to different value dates for the customer).

The degree to which entries with back and forward value

dates can be integrated into physical pooling depends on

the respective legal and technical conditions.

Zero Balancing Pooling can be offered locally (when cur-

rent accounts involved in such pooling are held with one

UniCredit subsidiary) as well as across borders (when cur-

rent accounts are held with different banks).

Target Balancing

Contrary to Zero Balancing, Target Balancing generally pools

all accounts to ensure a pre-set balance. Stipulating mini-

mum amounts for transfers helps to avoid very small amounts

being automatically transferred, which in turn minimises

booking transactions and saves on transfer costs. Entries

with back value dates are assigned with the date when they

are transferred.

Trustee Interest Calculation

As prescribed by law, the total interest revenues have to be

distributed to the pooling participants in line with the prevail-

ing market conditions (“arm’s-length principle”). Let us do

that for you. Our auxiliary product Trustee Interest Calcula-

tion can be combined with our physical (effective) and non-

physical (notional) pooling products and offers a range of

services, such as:

■ Interest calculation where individual interest spreads can

be defined for each account under consideration of the

arm’s-length principle.

■ Account statements and detailed balance reports for

intra-group settlement.

■ Issue of payment orders for booking the accrued credit

or debit interest onto the pooling participants’ accounts.

13

NON-PHYSICAL POOLING

14

Notional Pooling

Contrary to physical (effective) pooling, non-physical pool-

ing does not involve any physical transfers. All (credit and

debit) balances on the accounts involved in a notional pool

remain unchanged; they are just notionally combined. In-

terest calculation takes place only on the resulting fictitious

balance. Interest is subsequently computed for the master

account. No interest is credited or charged to the various

participating accounts involved in the offsetting. Please note

that Notional Pooling is only offered where the legislation

imposes no fiscal or legal constraints.

Margin Pooling (Interest Enhancement)

This service, which is also known as Interest Enhancement,

is a special form of Notional Pooling. It offers the greatest

flexibility as it can be implemented on a cross-border, cross-

country and cross-bank basis. All balances on the current

accounts included in such pooling are hypothetically con-

verted into one currency (e.g. EUR) on a daily basis with

credit and debit balances being added up separately. The

smaller the difference between total debit and total credit

balances, the greater the interest margin (bonus) waived by

UniCredit Group’s subsidiaries will be.

Interest Bonus Calculation:

The calculation of the bonus is based on

■ equal defined accounting periods (quarterly) for all

participating accounts

■ the electronic account statements (SWIFT MT940)

■ the monthly average EUR exchange rate or the rate quot-

ed at the end of the preceding month by the European

Central Bank for notional conversion of all account bal-

ances into, for example, EUR

■ the maximum proportion of the variable margin (differ-

ence between Client Special Rate and Client Best Rate).

The bonus will automatically be calculated and propor-

tionally credited by each account-holding bank to each par-

ticipating account in the relevant account currency at the

end of the defined accounting period.

As there are almost no legal or fiscal regulations, this

form of pooling is one of the procedures most frequently

used in Eastern Europe, where currency restrictions and

controls are often tight.

Trustee Interest Calculation

As prescribed by law, the total interest revenues have to be

distributed to the pooling participants in line with the prevail-

ing market conditions (“arm’s-length principle”). Let us do

that for you. Our auxiliary product Trustee Interest Calcula-

tion can be combined with our physical (effective) and non-

physical (notional) pooling products and offers a range of

services, such as:

■ Interest calculation where individual interest spreads can

be defined for each account under consideration of the

arm’s-length principle.

■ Account statements and detailed balance reports for

intra-group settlement.

■ Issue of payment orders for booking the accrued credit

or debit interest onto the pooling participants’ accounts.

15

Please note

Before implementing cash pooling, local and legal prereq-

uisites as well as a company’s specific structure have to be

considered. We strongly recommend obtaining detailed ad-

vice from your lawyer or tax consultant.

SUMMARY AND CONTACTS Our primary objective is to support you in op-

timising your corporate financial position with effi-

cient and effective liquidity management. We provide a

range of innovative and combinable products and serv-

ices and are the perfect partner for tailoring the best

solution for your company.

We look forward to providing you with you further

information, and our cash management specialists

would be happy to place their services at your disposal.

Please contact them at:

tel.: +43 (0)5 05 05-42840

e-mail: ebanking@unicreditgroup.at

8481

00

00

1M

/04.

09/S

T/X

X

Subject to errors and misprints.As of April 2009

This brochure was produced by UniCredit Bank Austria AG, Schottengasse 6–8, A-1010 Vienna.

www.bankaustria.at

And what are your mental “maybes”?

Do you want to capitalise on opportunities, make your plans a reality and achieve your goals?

But you’re not quite ready to make an entrepreneurial decision because you’re not 100% sure

about the feasibility of your ideas?

We would like to help you change that: We want to work with you to create a basis from which

you can successfully turn your current and future plans into a tangible reality. With entrepreneurial

thinking and innovative fi nancial models that facilitate growth. As a member of UniCredit Group,

Bank Austria offers you a unique balance between local expertise and international know-how, is

familiar with the business sectors and strategies of its customers and can offer you the highest level of

support using its leading international network. This will turn many a “maybe” into a realistic option.

Let’s start!