Merck's effort to standardize its cash management andpayments worldwide by implementing a single global bankinginterface has produced many benefits, says Mark McDonough,treasurer and vice president at the $48 billion pharmaceuticalcompany. But he acknowledges that the process was not easy.

Before New Jersey-based Merck implemented the global bankingstrategy, the company's “transactional banking activities [were]very much geared to local market needs and local market bankingprocesses,” McDonough says. Advances in technology, as well asMerck's move to a standard global ERP platform and shared-servicesenvironment, paved the way for deploying a single payments fileformat worldwide, an effort that Merck's treasury began to roll outin 2008.

“What we have done is say to our banks, 'We will give to you asingle payments file,' and the format of that payments file isstandard around the world,” McDonough says. “It can support severaltypes of payments, but it's a standard interface around the world.We present the same interface to our banking partners inAsia-Pacific and to our banking partners in Europe as we do inNorth America.”