Establishing regional treasury centres in Abu Dhabi Global Market (ADGM)

Treasury functions of organisations across the world are in a phase of rapid change. The multinational companies and other organisations which they serve are themselves undergoing major transformation and development, due to economic and technological changes across the world.

In this context, there is a clear trend to centralise treasury operations, in one or more Regional Treasury Centres (RTCs). RTCs bring together treasury functions in a single centralised location, managed by a centralised team. The functions in an RTC generally include cash pooling and other typical treasury functions, depending on the needs of the organisation.
A number of RTCs have been established in the UAE in recent years, including ADGM.

European and US headquartered groups have chosen the UAE and ADGM in particular as the location for their regional headquarters and related functions, because of the business friendly environment, political stability, internationally aligned regulatory and judicial regime, quality of infrastructure, favourable tax environment, and a geographic location which is particularly convenient for treasury management across Europe, the Middle East and Africa.

These papers set out the legal and tax framework applicable to Regional Treasury Centres in ADGM, and highlight some of the tax and regulatory considerations of performing treasury operations in the wider region (Middle East, India, Pakistan and Turkey) from ADGM. They also provide a comparison of ADGM with other commonly used RTC jurisdictions from a tax and regulatory perspective.