From the Arab Spring to the Great Recession, and from theEurozone crisis to Hurricane Maria, global events over the pastdecade have strained the ability of U.S.-based multinationals toensure uninterrupted liquidity for employees and operations inremote locales.

"The last 10 years have been very interesting for anybody ininternational cash management," says Jim Scurlock, head of cashmanagement for Microsoft. "We experienced a few incidents thataffected our ability to move money across borders. In most cases,we saw the writing on the wall and moved our cash out early. Butafter repeatedly seeing similar issues in different places, wefocused on reducing our cash around the world and minimizing thecounterparty and sovereign risks that could threaten ourliquidity."