By: Eleanor Hill

As global manufacturers navigate more complex supply chains, uneven financing conditions and rising pressure on cash, treasury teams are looking for more flexible ways to manage working capital. For Şişecam, the answer lay in Working Capital Notes™ – a new structure that supports suppliers, preserves continuity and gives treasury greater control over settlement timing – without adding friction to existing processes.

For large manufacturers, working capital is rarely a question of access to funding alone. More often, the real challenge is timing.

Treasury teams must balance competing priorities: preserving liquidity, supporting suppliers, managing payment terms and maintaining resilience across multiple markets. And the larger and more international the organisation becomes, the harder that balancing act can be.

What works well in one market may also prove difficult to replicate elsewhere. What’s more, a financing structure that supports treasury objectives can create complexity for suppliers, procurement teams or accounts payable if it is not designed around the way the business actually operates.

That was the challenge facing Şişecam, one of the world’s largest glass and chemicals manufacturers. With more than 23,000 employees, 43 production facilities, and operations spanning 12 countries, the company manages a vast network of suppliers, currencies, payment flows and funding requirements. Maintaining visibility and control across such a footprint requires more than liquidity. It requires flexibility.

Over the past decade, Şişecam’s treasury function has undergone a significant transformation, evolving from a fragmented and largely manual structure into a globally connected organisation overseeing liquidity, funding, payments, financial technology and working capital strategy across Europe, Asia, and the Americas.

As that journey progressed, the next question became more strategic: how could treasury manage working capital more dynamically across a complex international supplier base without creating drag?

Looking beyond traditional programmes

Of course, traditional supply chain finance programmes remain an important part of the working capital toolkit. Yet multinational organisations often encounter practical limitations when attempting to scale these structures consistently across different jurisdictions, supplier groups, and operating environments.

At Şişecam, the treasury team wanted something more adaptable – not only to unlock liquidity, but to do so in a way that reflected the realities of a global manufacturing business.

“To manage working capital more proactively, we needed a scalable and modern financing instrument aligned with how our global business functions,” says Barış Gökalp, Global Head of Treasury at Şişecam.

“We weren’t looking for another pilot programme that would sit on the side. We needed something that could be embedded into our day-to-day processes and rolled out across markets without heavy operational change,” he adds.

Supplier relationships were also central to his thinking here. Many suppliers continue to operate in an environment shaped by elevated borrowing costs, uneven liquidity conditions and persistent economic uncertainty. Any new structure, therefore, needed to support those suppliers rather than push complexity further down the chain.

These requirements ultimately led Şişecam to Working Capital Notes™ – digital negotiable instruments issued against underlying trade transactions. The structure, created by fintech ETR Digital, is designed to allow suppliers to access earlier payment, while giving buyers greater flexibility over settlement timing.

In simple terms, once the relevant trade data and documentation are verified, a digital note can be issued and financed. The supplier receives payment earlier, while the corporate settles the note at maturity. Because the instrument is digital, transferable and supported by a clear audit trail, it can connect approved trade flows with funding in a more flexible way than many traditional programme-based models.

Turning theory into practice

In late 2025, Şişecam became the first corporate to deploy digital Working Capital Notes in a live treasury environment.

The initiative was delivered through a collaboration between Şişecam, İşbank, ETR Digital, and Faturalab. ETR Digital provided the Working Capital Notes framework and Flownote technology underpinning the structure. Faturalab enabled the integration into existing accounts payable workflows, helping the programme sit within processes already used by suppliers and internal teams. Meanwhile, İşbank provided the financing for the inaugural transaction, allowing the structure to operate in a live production environment rather than remaining a proof of concept.

That distinction matters, since corporate treasury teams are often presented with new financing ideas that work in theory but prove harder to embed once they meet real-world processes, supplier behaviours, internal controls, and audit requirements. In Şişecam’s case, the test was whether the structure could operate inside an established multinational treasury environment without forcing the business to redesign its working capital processes around a new platform.

The initial deployment was completed in just ten working days and embedded into existing accounts payable processes with minimal disruption. “For us, the key question was whether this would work in a real operational environment, not just in theory,” Gökalp recalls. “The fact that we were able to go live quickly and see the structure functioning as intended gave us confidence to expand it.”

As such, the programme forms part of a broader framework targeting up to $250m of working capital capacity as it expands across additional supplier groups and markets.

Importantly, the structure sits alongside existing financing arrangements rather than replacing them. Treasury retains the ability to deploy different tools where they make most sense, creating a more adaptable liquidity strategy overall.

Creating optionality

Arguably the strongest theme running through Şişecam’s experience is optionality.

In an environment shaped by geopolitical uncertainty, supply chain disruption, and changing funding conditions, treasury teams are increasingly looking for tools that can be deployed selectively rather than locking the business into rigid structures that may need to be renegotiated as circumstances shift.

“As we looked at how to support our suppliers and manage our own cash cycle, we wanted a solution that could evolve with us,” says Gökalp. “This gives us a framework we can build on rather than something that has to be reinvented each time.”

Such flexibility is particularly important for a company operating across multiple jurisdictions and supplier profiles. A global treasury function needs structures that can adapt to different markets, not ones that only work in narrow conditions. The ability to deploy financing by market, supplier group or transaction gives treasury greater control over where working capital support is most useful.

In addition, the programme reflects a wider shift in treasury priorities. Working capital optimisation remains important, but so too does supplier resilience. Treasury leaders are therefore being asked to improve liquidity metrics while helping strengthen relationships across their supplier ecosystems.

“We were keen to ensure that any changes we made would strengthen, not strain, our supplier relationships,” Gökalp notes. “The ability for suppliers to receive early payment while we manage our own cash flow more effectively is an important part of that.”

Seen through that lens, the project is not only about funding. It is about giving all participants in the working capital cycle more flexibility: suppliers gain earlier and more predictable access to cash, treasury gains greater control over settlement timing, and financing partners gain access to digitally traceable trade assets supported by verified data.

Lessons for treasury teams

The significance of the project extends beyond the introduction of a new financing structure, however.

It highlights a broader evolution in treasury thinking, where success depends not only on securing liquidity but on building frameworks that can adapt to changing business conditions. The most valuable innovations are rarely those that promise wholesale transformation overnight. More often, they are the ones that solve practical problems, fit naturally within existing processes and give treasury additional choices when circumstances change.

That may be the most important lesson from Şişecam’s experience. Working capital tools do not need to replace existing programmes to be valuable. They can sit alongside them, adding flexibility where traditional structures are less suitable and giving treasury another lever to pull when market conditions, supplier needs or funding dynamics shift.

For Gökalp, that is the strategic value of the programme. “In a global business, conditions change quickly. Having a structure that allows us to respond to those changes without renegotiating entire programmes is valuable.”

As treasury teams continue searching for ways to improve working capital efficiency while supporting suppliers and preserving flexibility, that lesson is likely to resonate far beyond a single transaction. And in an environment where adaptability is becoming every bit as important as access to funding, optionality may prove to be one of treasury’s most valuable assets.