As Jotun continued to expand into new markets, its treasury and banking landscape became increasingly complex. The existing setup had supported the business for many years, but evolving banking standards and a broader international footprint created a need for a more flexible and future-ready approach.

Evolving Bank Connectivity: The existing setup relied on flat file integration formats that banks were gradually moving away from. Jotun needed a solution that could adapt to changing connectivity requirements while supporting day-to-day operational continuity.

Complex Global Banking Landscape: With 70+ banking relationships covering 49 countries, including four core global banks and several local banks, Jotun needed a more consistent way to manage payment flows. In many operating units, settlements were still handled locally, which limited standardization and central visibility.

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Need for a Translation Layer Between ERP and Banks: Jotun runs its global operations on a single ERP platform. While this provides an important level of consistency and standardization, the company needed an additional layer to translate ERP output into the varying technical and local requirements of banks across different countries and regions.

Lean Central Treasury Team: With treasury responsibilities distributed across 56 operating units, each with its own accounting and back-office resources, the central treasury team remained relatively lean. This made ease of maintenance, flexibility and responsive support especially important in the selection of a new platform.

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Jotun selected Ripple Treasury to support both treasury management and payment hub operations within a single software-as-a-service platform. The solution offered the flexibility needed for a global organization with diverse banking requirements, while also supporting a pragmatic implementation approach that suited Jotun’s operating model.

ERP-to-Bank Payment Hub: Ripple Treasury acts as a translation layer between Jotun’s ERP environment and banking network. Standard payment instruction files flow from the ERP system and are reformatted to meet the local and technical requirements of destination banks and countries. This has been especially valuable in supporting local language character sets, complex purpose of payment configurations, and bank-delivered remittance advice not supported directly from the standard ERP file.

Multi-Bank Connectivity: The integration covers Jotun’s primary global banking partners as well as several local banks needed to support markets not fully served by global institutions. The platform manages technical variation across those relationships without requiring extensive changes to the core ERP environment, greatly improving the speed at which changes can be delivered.

Treasury Operations Module: In parallel with the payment hub rollout, Jotun deployed Ripple’s treasury module to support FX hedging, an internal loan portfolio for subsidiaries, parent company guarantees to local entities and a European cash pool. External FX hedging contracts with banking partners are also integrated through a connected trading platform. Additionally, a Jotun-developed mobile app connects directly to Ripple Treasury, enabling local units participating in the cash pool to submit their FX requirements to Group Treasury.

SWIFT Connectivity for Bank Statements: With many local banking relationships across the group, leveraging Ripple’s SWIFT account has given Jotun a fast and efficient alternative to establishing dozens of host-to-host connections. This enables the centralized collection of electronic bank statements and the automated conversion of that data into cash balances within the platform.

Bank Statement Integration to ERP: Jotun has also successfully piloted bank statement integration back into its ERP environment, with encouraging early results. Just as one standardized payment file is delivered from the ERP into Ripple Treasury, the goal is for Ripple Treasury to return one standardized, ERP-optimized bank statement format back to the ERP. Statement integration within the ERP environment will help automate the settlement process, improve reconciliation routines and create a stronger link between banking activity and financial reporting.

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Greater Agility: Changes to payment file formats that once required lengthy ERP development cycles can now be implemented much more quickly through Ripple Treasury. This has been especially important in markets with localized banking requirements and evolving technical standards.

Improved Visibility and Control: The payment hub has given Jotun a stronger foundation for visibility into cross-border payment flows across the organization. As bank statement loading expands further, the platform is expected to support more centralized payment and collection structures over time.

Scalable Support for Growth: As a cloud-based platform, Ripple Treasury has enabled Jotun to expand banking connectivity and roll out payment integration across dozens of operating units without a proportional increase in central treasury resources. Building further on the success of commercial supplier payments, the team now plans to route employee expense reimbursements through the platform.

A Platform for Continued Development: Intercompany netting represents an important future opportunity, particularly given the scale of USD flows underpinning much of Jotun’s internal trade. The team is also evaluating additional options for cross-border settlements, including Ripple Treasury’s payment capabilities, as part of its broader modernization journey.

The rollout took approximately one year to go live with the treasury module, followed by a gradual expansion of payment integration. Managing change across 56 independent operating units, each with its own financial management and local processes, has been a significant part of the journey. Building alignment required patience, external support during the planning phase and a steady focus on practical progress.

Jotun’s treasury modernization is a multi-year journey, and that is intentional. The organization is building the infrastructure needed to support more centralized control across a complex global operation. With payment integration in place and the platform continuing to evolve, Jotun has established a solid foundation for the next phase of treasury and payment transformation.

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“We’re convinced we selected the right solution. It gives us the flexibility to introduce changes and adapt more quickly as business needs evolve.”

Hamish Waddell, Global Finance Process Manager at Jotun

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