The perception of corporate treasury among senior management is an issue for finance professionals around the world.

Surveys refer to the growing importance of the corporate treasury function and the fact it has grown beyond its traditional role into a platform that delivers essential data and analytics. However, this does not mean treasurers always have a strong input into decision making.

“Perceptions differ,” observes Amit Baraskar, Vice President & Head of Treasury at Thomas Cook India. “However, I am seeing a lot more scope for senior management to involve treasury in strategic decision making, which would involve joint efforts in discovering the potential treasury teams have and putting it to the right use while fine-tuning the organisation’s strategy.”

This was just one of the factors behind the formation of the India Corporate Treasurers Association in May, of which Baraskar is chairman.

“The need for the association was primarily that corporate treasury as a profession lacked awareness and has not been getting due recognition,” he says. “The key objectives behind forming the association were getting the treasury fraternity in sync and to the highest standards of professionalism and integrity, to act as the voice of treasurers – both within and outside India – and to inspire and mentor treasury professionals to upgrade skillsets and provide forums for networking and sharing best practices.”

Corporate treasurers in India did not have any structured forums where they could meet and share ideas prior to the formation of the India Corporate Treasurers Association.

“We were dependent on external bodies to hold events where we could network,” says Baraskar. “Large organisations have networking events for treasury restricted to their group companies, but this is the first one where treasurers provide and control the platform.”

Baraskar says the main challenges facing corporate treasurers in India can be summed up as regulations and regulatory restrictions; time zone (India’s location means it is not really close to any of the major financial centres); and lack of awareness of the pressures faced by treasurers.

“The profession is not properly recognised outside the highest levels of corporate India and as a result treasury is generally undermined when it comes to awards and recognition,” he says.

When asked to describe the availability of finance for Indian companies looking to develop and expand, Baraskar refers to the old adage that banks ‘love you the most when you are cash rich and do not need them’.

“When you really need the banks, they tend to arm twist,” he says. “But India is a market with diverse approaches giving an opportunity to most companies to avail of sources of funding.”

There are four main sources of finance according to Baraskar:

• Foreign banks – most of the global banks are extremely credit conscious and end up funding only those companies where they have a global relationship and credit comfort.

• Indian public sector banks – these tend to have age-old credit approaches and end up only funding existing relationships, which means new corporate clientele find it difficult to pass stringent credit evaluations which are more theoretical in nature.

• Indian private banks – these work on stringent targets with dynamic credit teams and while they end up taking a few credit hits they do good lending business and, in the process, encourage new businesses to grow.

• Fintechs – these have their own creative ways of sourcing and providing finance and are bringing in a paradigm shift in SME and consumer financing, which is a boon to the country’s economy.

“The government has also been introducing initiatives to encourage companies to grow by making funding sources available,” adds Baraskar.