AI

Corporate Treasury's relationship with their IT department

Report date: 
10 Feb 2025

Commentary

“In every company, we all share the same objectives and work together to achieve them.” 

This statement is obvious – but we all know that the reality is more complicated: apart from genuine – healthy – differences of opinion, the need to prioritise the use of scarce resources can generate heated debates which do not always end well.

The reality of corporate teamwork is especially challenging for treasurers. We rely on data and input from many sources, and we need IT systems to manage this process. But many treasurers are reluctant to be part of the corporate IT structure: it usually does not provide the functionality we need, treasury is often not a high priority for budgets and investment, and there is a strong feeling IT does not understand our needs. At the same time, as good corporate citizens, we should not be heading off in a separate direction.

So – how do treasurers manage this conundrum?

  • Have a specialised IT team in treasury, or rely on central IT?
  • Use the treasury module of the major ERP systems, or install a bespoke TMS?
  • Download all the data manually and use spreadsheets?
  • Where to get the budgets? Where does treasury stand in the pecking order?

There was a surprising consistency in the approach: 

  • Whoever they actually report to, everyone felt a specialised IT team was needed
  • Whether treasury runs its own IT team or not, treasury’s needs have to be addressed separately
  • Most participants agreed treasury is not a top priority for the business or budgets. One took a very different view: using value at risk as an argument, they had obtained “gold standard” prioritisation.
  • A different approach is to frame treasury business cases in terms of....
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Topics covered in this report: 
Technology, SWIFT, AI

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AI & Robotics in Corporate Treasury

Report date: 
9 May 2023

Commentary

This call was organised in the midst of media hype about AI (Artificial Intelligence), with several banks having banned the use of ChatGPT, and highly convincing fake videos being created and going viral. The first question was whether our members share the banks’ concern over the danger of tools such as ChatGPT running out of control and executing highly credible frauds. The answer was “No” - in the sense that it was not on anyone’s radar screen.

The second question was about the adoption of robots to automate treasury processes: these typically execute pre-defined processes, with no decision-making function. There are high levels of interest in this, and increasing levels of adoption. 

AI is of interest for areas such as forecasting, where an increasing number of applications are available which look at historical data and use it to predict future patterns. However, only one participant is currently using it for cash forecasting. But:

  • Banks are increasingly using AI to screen transactions, and highlight unusual ones. This is good – but one participant saw valid, but unusual, transactions fail to execute on time as a result.  
  • AI’s ability to handle large data lakes or oceans inside companies is a positive - but it is hard to be sure all the relevant data has been included. 
  • One participant is concerned that the questions being asked on ChatGPT could potentially be tracked, leading to confidentiality breaches.
  • The same participant is also concerned that the inability to track and verify the source of data in this tool could lead to unintentional copyright infringements. Usage rules are being put in place to manage these risks.

On the other hand, most participants are actively using robots for various tasks:

  • Allocation of
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Topics covered in this report: 
Robotics, AI, Cash forecasting, Technology

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