Receive on Behalf of (ROBO) means a central entity receives customer or counterparty funds that economically belong to another group company. The goal is fewer debtor-facing accounts and faster concentration into liquidity management structures.
ROBO is the inbound counterpart to POBO. Both can sit inside or beside a payment factory and an in-house bank, but neither is automatic just because payments are centralized.
Why groups want it
- Fewer debtor-facing accounts per country
- Faster visibility of group collections
- Easier linkage into cash pooling or cross-border cash pooling once funds land at the center
What must be true
- Legal authority to collect for affiliates
- Clear remittance information / virtual account / allocation keys so cash posts to the right entity
- Tax and revenue-recognition alignment (who invoiced vs who received)
- Bank product support for on-behalf collections in that corridor
Virtual accounts often support ROBO-style allocation; they are still not notional pooling.
Constraints
Some schemes and jurisdictions limit third-party collections. Cross-border ROBO can collide with FX documentation and beneficiary-name matching. In China, domestic collection design usually comes before any cross-border aspiration.
Operating rule
Implement ROBO only where allocation quality is high. Otherwise keep entity-level collections and concentrate via pooling — messy ROBO destroys month-end faster than it saves accounts.