Editorial

Preparing for volatility

Weaving the different threads from the articles in our latest edition together reveals one common seam: risk – and how to navigate it. A fitting topic in our first edition of 2024, a year that could hold more uncertainty than most. War continues to rage between Israel and Hamas and Russia and Ukraine. It’s the biggest election year in history with voters going to the polls in countries including the US, Germany, the UK and India. And it remains to be seen if economies will experience a hard or soft economic landing, and to what extent corporate earnings are pounded. It’s an uncertain backdrop for companies developing new operations in China plus 1 and 2 strategies in countries like India and Mexico, the focus of our Insight & Analysis feature.

This edition’s FX piece explores navigating volatility with hedging strategies with insights from the treasury team at Save the Children and California-based medical products group Intuitive Surgical. Success depends on a good understanding of cash flows and forecasts, and dynamic, managed hedging programmes.

Quantum computers may still be five to ten years away, but a new year marks another step towards the arrival of a technology able to crack the encryption that keeps the internet safe. Such is the threat to cyber security, companies with valuable data, IP or manufacturing processes should prepare now. Treasury Today interviewees urge corporates to get across the cost of upgrading encryption; choose partners and consultants now and trial emerging solutions.

The risk of technology also brings unprecedented opportunity. In our Question Answered feature Onkar Liddar, Assistant Treasurer & Managing Director, Accenture enthusiastically endorses AI in treasury, explaining how the management consultancy has used AI to develop an intelligent cash tool. The treasury utopia of instructing AI to carry out transactions like exchanging a currency or increasing a bond offering, and manage the accounting in the background, is just around the corner.

Finally, for all the unknowns ahead, treasury preparedness for 2024 is captured in our cast back to lessons learnt in 2023. We speak to three treasurers well prepared for whatever lies ahead. Like Singapore-based Jason Teo at LOGOS Group, this edition’s Corporate View who explains how he started his career in branch banking.