• Need for speed: technology in the driving seat

    While several key themes emerged from this year’s Business & Operational Excellence in Payments conference – from the importance of improving the client experience to the impact of impending Basel III regulation – one topic distinguished itself from the rest: the tumultuous impact of evolving technology on the treasurer’s working environment. For well over a decade, technology has been in the driving seat of everyday cash management, but are treasurers keeping up to speed with such change?

  • BlackBerry leaves a bitter aftertaste

    What a sad reality: on the opening day of the EuroFinance Conference in Rome last week, while the panel was hotly debating ‘treasury in 2030’ and how payment cards would soon be replaced by mobile phones, half the conference floor was reduced to texting each other – yes, SMS messaging – because of the BlackBerry crash. Spanning the globe, the outage caused chaos for three days as users were ‘starved’ of instant access to their emails.

  • SWIFTRef: filling the information gap

    Every treasury that receives a lot of global payments will know the problems that failed or incomplete reference data can cause. It was suggested recently that the financial cost alone runs to millions of euros a day and billions a year, not to mention the strain it puts on the back office.

  • Forget TMS – you need a TiMS

    While many treasurers are still fighting for budget to upgrade their existing systems to a TMS, a quiet revolution is happening: the rise of the TiMS. This trend looks set to signal the advent of a true primary decision support system for treasurers. But what exactly is a TiMS and what can it do for you?

  • DIY treasury: filling the technology gap

    Treasury technology not up to the job? Nothing on the market that suits your requirements? Then why not make the kit you need, and set up shop yourself – after all, the person who understands your needs best is you...

  • Mobile treasury – the answer to holiday blues?

    Sun, sea and sand? Or a lack of staff and slowed down approvals on payments and purchase orders?  The month of August means different things to different people, but one thing that it signifies to almost everyone is a break from work. While holidays are good for the soul, they can wreak havoc in the treasury department, in particular when senior treasury staff and C-level executives - in other words, the usual authorised signatories - are away.

  • Can ‘greening’ your treasury save money?

    When projects are billed as ‘ethical’ or ‘eco-friendly’, you can be sure most CFOs see through the spin and know a hefty bill is on the way. But should ‘green treasury’ be re-branded ‘efficient treasury’ when it can cut costs and reduce fraud, too?

  • Lies, damned lies and marketing speak

    “Think of ‘free’ as a matter of liberty – like freedom of speech – rather than ‘free’ in terms of price”…

  • To tweet or not to tweet

    From targeted industry forums to LinkedIn and Twitter, there are a number of treasurers out there who are already using social media on a professional level. Can social media really enhance job performance though and what are the risks of shutting the door to social media in the treasury department?

  • You need neat processes, not just cool technologies

    Electronic invoicing processes can cut costs substantially and save your treasury huge amounts of time. But unless you establish intelligent processes before implementing the high-tech systems…