Marsh treasury team’s strategic plan delivers best in class
Published: Feb 2026
Top Treasury Team
Highly Commended Winner
Marsh
Photo of Tee Yen Tan, HSBC, Chentel Tham, Novita Indayang, Huang Huiping, Marsh and Uma Bohne-Gill, HSBC.
Novita Indayang
Treasury Manager
Marsh is the world’s leading professional services firm in the areas of risk, strategy and people, helping clients navigate a dynamic environment through four market‑leading businesses.
With operations in 130 countries, Marsh generated US$24.5bn in revenues and has US$617bn of assets under management in FY24.
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Marsh’s treasury team in Asia Pacific
Prior to 2020, Marsh’s global treasury activities were managed from the US and UK, with no treasury presence in Asia Pacific. But with significant organic and acquisitive growth coming from the region, Marsh needed to establish a regional treasury centre in Singapore. Nicholas Hardy, Asia Pacific Treasury Director, led the build out of Marsh’s regional treasury function during the pandemic.
Today, the team manages core treasury-related matters for Asia Pacific for over 100 entities across 17 markets, covering cash management, liquidity management, investment, FX and funding activities. As well as the regional dividend programme and Treasury related M&A pre and post activities.
Clear vision empowers success
Within five years, Marsh’s Asia Pacific treasury team has firmly positioned itself as a trusted advisor to the business. Key to this is a clear five-year plan where the team aspires to gradually build out a real-time treasury function underpinned by automation, optimisation and transparency of cash across the region that will support the establishment of a future in‑house bank to deliver efficiencies for the group.
Optimising liquidity – as part of a wider global initiative to operate more efficiently and automate liquidity management, the Asia Pacific treasury team developed a zero-balance cross-border pooling structure with a multicurrency notional pool in Singapore. With automated zero-balance sweeps – the structure enables Marsh to optimise cash across more than 70 entities and over 100 accounts across seven markets in Asia Pacific in an efficient manner.
What is worth highlighting is the regulated nature of Marsh’s business that required extensive due diligence to identify the entities, accounts and balances that could participate in the pooling structure. As a non-bank financial institution (NBFI), Marsh’s Asia Pacific treasury team also spends considerable time managing liquidity and investments within the parameters of what’s allowed for their business, partnering with their internal legal organisation to ensure compliance with local regulation.
Adopting industry standards – to drive automation and best practices, there was a global roll-out of a new treasury management system (TMS), benefitting from automation of intercompany loans and reporting, while also leveraging industry file formats via Swift FIN/FileAct and BAI reporting for straight through processing of transactions and automated reconciliation. The move to intraday statement reporting which feeds into the TMS, facilitates real-time management of cash within the day, alleviating the need to access banking portals to retrieve cash balances.
Ensuring business resilience – treasury truly serves as the lifeline of Marsh’s business. Any impact on the cash pool, for example, can adversely impact the broader business. With this understanding, the treasury team places great emphasis on business continuity plan (BCP) drills and attestations each year, ensuring its processes and protocols are soundproof.
Running a high-performance team
Key to the treasury team’s success is a can-do attitude, strong problem-solving skills and challenging their banking partners to find solutions that meet their needs. Whilst no one day is the same, the fluidity of their work and ability to use sound judgement, keeps employees motivated.
Emphasis is placed on personal development with the company sponsoring each member to obtain professional qualifications. All members of the Asia Pacific treasury team have obtained professional treasury and/or finance qualifications – demonstrating the pursuit for excellence among members.
Harnessing automation, centralisation and optimisation
Riding on modern treasury tools, industry standards and best practices, Marsh’s treasury team in Asia Pacific is equipping its function with best in class digital solutions that prioritise automation, centralisation and optimisation, allowing its team to operate at the highest levels to deliver value. Marsh has also made available in-house AI chatbot and other AI tools and encourage the use of the tools.
The regional cross-border cash concentration and notional pooling solution, set up the same year in which the Asia treasury team was established, allows Marsh to optimise internal cash and minimise any borrowing cost efficiently, with automated end-of-day zero-balance sweeps and automated intercompany loan management. This eliminates the need for manual tracking and posting and was recognised as an overall winner in the 2022 Adam Smith Awards Asia.
The direct integration with bank systems for transactions processing utilising SWIFT connectivity and industry file formats, and the automated reconciliation enabled by BAI2 reporting means less manual intervention and fewer resulting operational errors. Marsh also utilises industry standard TWIST billing format to automate bank charge postings.
The recent rollout of the new TMS in February 2025, is also proving an important enabler as Marsh looks to future-proof its treasury and build out its in-house bank structure.
Benefits achieved
Cost savings.
Number of banking partners/bank accounts reduced.
Process efficiencies.
Return on investment.
Increased automation.
Risk mitigated.
Improved visibility.
Errors reduced.
Manual intervention reduced.
Increased system connectivity.
Future-proof solution.
A culture of excellence
What’s notable about Marsh’s Asia Pacific treasury team is how quickly it has delivered value for the business, while covering treasury operations for more than 100-plus entities in 17 markets.
From the outset, the focus was on hiring individuals with strong technical skills, but more importantly with a customer‑centric mindset to ensure the delivery of the highest level of service to internal stakeholders. The treasury team has focused on developing a culture of excellence, both in the way it acts as a strategic partner to the broader organisation, and in the way it supports the continued professional development of each team member.
With a strong team and a clear five-year plan, the regional treasury team has quickly demonstrated rigor and leadership in undertaking treasury initiatives that prioritise automation, centralisation and optimisation of treasury. The team has introduced regional oversight for monitoring and governance in line with group policy and best practices, established fiduciary cash positioning, and implemented straight-through processing to improve efficiency and resource utilisation.
A key enabler is the team’s smart adoption of treasury technologies, which has lowered the need for manual-based tasks, freeing up resource and time for value-added tasks that the team has excelled in doing. This has allowed the treasury team to support the myriad projects that continue to drive value for the business.
Uma Bohne-Gill
Head of Institutional Sales Asia, Global Payments Solutions, HSBC
The Marsh treasury team had a clear vision to setup a real time treasury function underpinned by automation and optimisation, with full transparency of cash across the region to deliver efficiencies for the wider group. This recognition speaks volumes of their pursuit for excellence and smart use of technologies to create strategic value and delivering on their vision. HSBC is proud to have been with them on this journey, witnessing the team’s impressive contribution and establishing themselves as a trailblazer in the treasury space.
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The Adam Smith Awards Asia are the industry benchmark for best practice and innovation in corporate treasury. To find out more please visit treasurytoday.com/adam-smith-awards-asia
