Over the course of this year, HSBC brought together more than 130 treasurers and finance directors in Singapore, Hong Kong and Shanghai to share best practices and insights. At each of these events, attendees were invited to discuss the themes that occupy their jobs now and how they are expected to develop.

When asked to estimate the split of their working hours between traditional treasury roles and driving change to achieve growth, the most popular response was a 70:30 split between the old and the new.

While this expectation elevates the importance and influence of treasury, it also brings with it a burden. Treasurers must fight for resources and interact with other company departments for the best overall outcome.

The visibility of treasury issues in an environment where rates and inflation are at the forefront of executives’ minds and soon after a pandemic that caused people to rethink realities around cash flow and trade means this is perhaps the ideal time for them to speak up.

Changed expectations also create a talent shortage. Employees increasingly need to be capable not only across treasury but in terms of new technologies. Amid this shortage, companies report a gap between what employees want to do and what they should be doing, with a generational gap in attitudes towards life balance and hybrid working arrangements.

One Singapore-based treasurer referred to two areas where his department is more involved in than the past. One is in the risk assessment and financing assessment of different investment cases – including overall gearing – and the other is systems change and digitisation.

Geopolitical events and financial market volatility were by a distance the top-of-mind issues among treasurers. In Singapore, geopolitics was the standout concern while in Hong Kong, financial market volatility was seen as the main challenge.

Those in the freight and logistics field who see disruption to shipping through the Red Sea spoke of rising freight rates and a consequent shift in their need for working capital.

Others noted that trade protectionism affects the skill set that treasurers require, bringing a need for both big picture strategic foresight and an understanding of complex tax and treasury functions.

The biggest practical impact of geopolitics is volatility, particularly in FX movements. Hedging is more important than ever, but it comes at a cost. Where classic FX hedging is prohibitively expensive, treasurers need to find new solutions for FX risk with the assistance of banks.

Low-cost renminbi funding is still not viable for international transactions and flows denominated in US dollars or euros because of the FX swap costs involved. Borrowing from local banks in mainland China for local operations and working capital needs remains a low cost option.

Overall, treasurers have maintained a degree of awareness of the external environment and remain nimble around their financing strategies. Many companies have held fixed rate financing over the past three years, enabling them to minimise the impact of high interest rates, which they would have had to manage if they had opted for floating rate debt.

Regulatory issues have also become increasingly onerous in the desire for real-time treasury and in particular for cross-border transactions. In markets like mainland China, cross-border transactions are associated with heavy paperwork and manual processes.

Treasurers in mainland China were also concerned by cumbersome and time consuming know your customer (KYC) regulations, which often delay operational processes. They expressed a desire for more streamlined regulatory processes that allow for quicker and more efficient transaction flows.