About
Headquartered in the U.S., with operations around the world, Afton Chemical Corporation develops and manufactures petroleum additives including driveline, engine oils, fuels, industrials and metalworking additives. Afton is a subsidiary of NewMarket Corporation, a firm concentrating in specialty chemicals.
The challenge
Afton significantly expanded its presence in India in recent years, in tandem with the rapidly developing economy. The firm’s primary focus in India is marketing and distributing petroleum and lubricant additive products, with operations in Mumbai and Hyderabad.
As Afton deals with large amounts of imports into India, it faces substantial challenges in managing cross-border and tax payments due to the country’s highly regulated environment. They include:
- Manual collation and submission of supporting documents across both locations to banks before cut-off times.
- Lengthy processing times and lack of visibility into transaction status.
- Maintaining a single point of visibility and control for transaction flows.
Afton was looking for an automated solution that would allow it to manage the huge volume of documentation across its two locations in a better way, and reduce reliance on highly manual processes.
The J.P. Morgan solution
J.P. Morgan introduced Afton to the Virtual Branch solution. It is a platform that allows the firm to manage cross-border and tax payments digitally. It fully integrates with its existing banking platform. The solution enabled Afton to:
- Upload and submit all supporting documents for cross-border and tax payments directly via the Virtual Branch portal.
- Track and trace documents submitted for payments using unique reference numbers.
- View detailed audit trails of each transaction in real time.
- Track payment (MT103) messages sent to the beneficiary bank.
- Share statutory payment details via a structured input screen.
- Download acknowledgement receipts directly from the portal as soon as payments are processed.
The Virtual Branch is accessible via J.P. Morgan Access®, which means Afton employees can leverage existing user IDs, passwords and tokens to log on to the platform. The firm can also create different user-level entitlements based on specific user needs.
Thanks to the Virtual Branch solution, our staff can now spend their time on more value-added tasks. J.P. Morgan also provided us with the necessary training to ensure the solution was implemented in a fast and seamless manner.
K.S. Chandrashekar
Finance Director, Afton Chemical India Private Limited
The result
The Virtual Branch has allowed Afton to automate cross-border and tax payments while also improving operational efficiencies through:
- The reduced need to manually collate and share paper documents across both locations.
- Improved processing and turnaround times by eliminating the need for staff to visit physical bank branches for document submission.
- Enhanced visibility of workflows and transaction status to allow quicker resolution when discrepancies arise.
This webpage was prepared exclusively for the internal use of the J.P. Morgan client to whom it is addressed (including the client’s affiliates, the “Company”). This webpage is incomplete without reference to, and should be viewed solely in conjunction with, the oral briefing provided by J.P. Morgan.
This webpage is confidential and proprietary to J.P. Morgan and is not intended to be legally binding. J.P. Morgan makes no representations as to the legal, regulatory, tax or accounting implications of the matters referred to in this presentation. The products and services described in this webpage are ordered by Banco J.P.Morgan, S.A., Institución de Banca Múltiple, J.P.Morgan Grupo Financiero and/or its affiliates, subject to applicable laws, regulations and service terms.
J.P. Morgan is a marketing name for the Treasury Services businesses of JPMorgan Chase Bank, N.A. and its affiliates worldwide.
