One of the key findings of the 2026 AFP liquidity survey was that the majority of treasurers would opt for real-time money market funds and investment sweeps as long as they complied with internal investment policies. More than four-in-ten now expect money market funds to offer 24/7 liquidity.

The traditional distinction between cash that is immediately available and cash invested in money market funds becomes more important when payment obligations arise outside normal business hours.

Tapping into idle cash

At its Swell 2026 conference last month, Ripple Treasury announced new functionality designed to help eligible corporate customers generate returns on operating cash that would otherwise remain idle overnight, over weekends and during holidays.

Blake Tablak, CEO of spend and compliance management solutions provider Trax, says the benefits of being able to manage cash, liquidity and payments at any time can be considerable, noting that cash that used to sit idle from Friday afternoon until Monday morning now earns a return over the weekend and is back in place before Monday’s payments go out.

He says the company is close to having a live, consolidated view of cash, liquidity, exposures and payments across all entities, banks and currencies for payments.

“The bigger change is on the bank side,” says Tablak. “We used to have to standardise on one bank for everything. Since adopting Ripple Treasury, we have gained the flexibility to work across our customers’ existing banking relationships. Currency exposure is the harder part, because our mix changes as customers come on or roll off.”

Moving money continuously

Nights-and-weekends payments are already live, and the weekend cash piece is rolling out in stages.

When asked which treasury activities genuinely need to operate continuously and which still work perfectly well on a daily or weekly cycle, he explains that the money has to move continuously.

“Carrier payments are the obvious one and so is the cash we put to work over the weekend,” says Tablak. “Freight runs seven days a week and the people waiting on payment don’t care what day it is. A lot of the rest works fine on a schedule, and I would be suspicious of anyone who says otherwise.”

He says the benefits lie not so much in the ability to make decisions using live data that would previously have been delayed until the next day or beyond as in improved quality of service. This allows the company to be more responsive to changes in the payment flow.

Always-on treasury

Tablak also acknowledges that always-on treasury has created new dependencies on technology that can operate reliably around the clock.

“That is a trade we are comfortable making, but we didn’t go into it lightly,” he says. “We handle customer money, so we spent about six months going back and forth before we committed to moving ahead, making sure the risk controls lined up. A lot of the control is built in on our end anyway, because every payment goes out against an approved invoice tied to a contract.”

On the technology side, Trax is retiring a payment system it custom-built in-house. While it did the job, Tablak says it was fairly manual and now the process is much more efficient.

“What it hasn’t meant is people working around the clock,” he adds. “The overnight and weekend moves are automated, which is the whole point. We still keep a person in the loop in parts of the business – given our volumes and the regulation we deal with – and I think that is the right call for now.”