1. CUSTOMER SUCCESS
Treasury Management
Multi-Currency Accounts Provide
Global Solution
When Boykin tried to open new accounts overseas, working
with Wells Fargo and several other banks, he felt the ultimate
pain point of foreign banking. “We tried to open an account in
one country, and it took us close to six months,” Boykin says.
Clearly, opening foreign bank accounts is no easy task.
His Wells Fargo treasury management representative had
discussed multi-currency accounts with Boykin, explaining
that MCAs would allow Rowan Companies to collect and
disburse payments in foreign currencies without converting
them to U.S. dollars and incurring foreign exchange fees.
Multi-Currency Accounts Help Rowan Companies
Manage Global Cash Picture in One-Fourth the Time
Labor-Intensive Process Was
a Full-Time Job
When Michael Boykin moved from the assistant controller’s
office into the treasury department of Rowan Companies,
Inc., in 2005, he found himself spending 7 to 8 hours a day
managing the company’s bank accounts in the United States
and the 11 other countries where it does business.
A major provider of global contract drilling and manufac­-
turing services, Houston-based Rowan Companies has more
than 5,000 employees worldwide and annual revenues of
more than $2 billion. The task of monitoring receivables,
payables, and payroll for all of the company’s domestic and
overseas operations—while complying with the financial
reporting requirements of Sarbanes-Oxley—falls to Boykin
and his team.
The company had a decentralized banking structure,
with each location responsible for opening its own bank
account and forming its own banking relationships
“I can now do in two hours what used to
take me seven or eight hours to accomplish.”
—Michael Boykin, assistant treasurer,
Rowan Companies, Inc.
Wells Fargo MCAs, with more than 30 currencies available,
are not foreign bank accounts; they’re Wells Fargo accounts
that reside in the Cayman Islands. But it was the experience
of trying to open a foreign account that made Boykin try
them. “I finally said, ‘It’s not worth it. Let’s just go through
Wells Fargo and do an MCA.’”
One MCA led to another until Boykin had centralized
Rowan’s global banking and returned control of the
company’s treasury functions to Houston. “We do maintain
local petty cash accounts, but any activity of a sizeable nature
is done through our Wells Fargo MCAs,” Boykin says.
in-country. Boykin quickly found that, from Houston head­
quarters, he had limited visibility into and little control over
the foreign accounts.
“We used to spend almost the entire day just trying to account
for where our cash was and what had happened in all of our
foreign and domestic accounts,” Boykin says. “We often had
to wait for statements at the end of the month just to confirm
whether or not an item had cleared.”

2. Seeing the World from a U.S. Desk
Virtually all foreign bank accounts—even those housed with
branches of U.S. banks—report through different platforms.
So it’s very difficult to see a company’s global cash picture
from a desk in Houston or New York City.
A key factor in Boykin’s selection of Wells Fargo was the
Commercial Electronic Office®
(CEO®
) portal, which can
deliver electronic reporting on all of a customer’s accounts—
Wells Fargo checking accounts and MCAs as well as non-
Wells Fargo domestic and foreign accounts.
Other banks provide account information to Wells Fargo via
BAI or SWIFT reporting, and that information is accessed
through the CEO portal. Once cross-bank reporting was set
up, Boykin was able to view and manage Rowan’s total cash
picture with a single sign-on to the CEO portal.
“The increased visibility is huge and has helped enormously
with liquidity,” he says.
Foreign Exchange Online Saves Time—
and Money
Boykin also appreciates the ease of doing all his foreign
exchange through the CEO portal and Foreign Exchange
Online—a real-time, comprehensive foreign exchange system
offered by Wells Fargo.
For Boykin, a process that used to involve numerous
overseas calls, cutting individual checks, and monitoring fax
confirmations can now be accomplished with a single login
to the CEO portal. “Not having to make phone calls and deal
with faxes, we probably save three hours a week being able
to see it all online through the CEO portal,” he says.
Adding further efficiencies, each month Boykin predicts what
he’ll need in terms of foreign currencies and buys month-long
contracts designed to reduce price fluctuation. “From an
accounting standpoint,” he says, “it’s nice to know what
your currency’s going to cost you.”
CUSTOMER SUCCESS
Treasury Management
©2009 Wells Fargo Bank, N.A. All rights reserved. Member FDIC. Deposits maintained in Multi-Currency Accounts are not
considered deposits for purposes of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (“FDIC”) and therefore are not FDIC-insured.
Multi-Currency Accounts Help Rowan Companies Manage Global Cash Picture in One-Fourth the Time
TM-2269
Rowan Companies is a major provider of global
contract drilling services and a manufacturer
of equipment for the drilling, mining, and
timber industries.
One-Contact Convenience Takes
Rowan into the Future
The time savings offered by Wells Fargo MCAs and Foreign
Exchange Online have been enormous for Boykin. “I can
now do in two hours what used to take me seven or eight
hours to accomplish,” he says. “I actually have time to
forecast for the future instead of always worrying about
what happened in the past.”
Boykin says that performing audit confirmations in compliance
with Sarbanes-Oxley has also become dramatically easier.
“We now have one point of contact—Wells Fargo—for
all of our accounts, as opposed to multiple contacts around
the world.”