Richards Bay Minerals is South Africa’s largest mineral sands producer and beneficiation company with worldwide recognition for its strength in mineral sands extraction and refining. It accounts for about 3.3% of South Africa’s mining sector by value of output. Richards Bay Minerals decided to partner with South African financial technology provider, Addendum, to develop a supply chain finance (SCF) programme to help achieve this strategic goal. Funding was provided by a South African bank.

By implementing a supply chain finance programme, Richards Bay Minerals wanted to minimize the impact of longer payment terms on local and foreign suppliers. Feedback from suppliers suggests that the supply chain finance funding is the cheapest working capital available to them. From first engagement with Addendum to making the programme live took only 28 days – one of the fastest, fully automated supply chain finance programs implemented in the world.

More than 34 per cent of RBM’s total eligible annual supply chain spend is currently traded on the programme. A total of R2.2bn-worth ($135.4 million) of working capital has been released since the programme began. What the judges said: “The accessibility to that programme for all suppliers (no matter of the size) makes this a very interesting one – great for corporate social responsibility.”

This article was originally published in SFC Briefing. Read the full article here.