Editorial

Managing change

The themes shaping our latest edition are a fitting round-up of the enduring issues influencing treasury strategy today – how to extract better returns from cash in a higher rate environment, the impact of China’s struggling economy on trade and how to harness real-world impacts of digitisation, all feature on our pages.

This edition explores how treasurers are well placed in their organisations to lead innovation and embark on digitalisation projects. However, although they agree on the importance of technologies like artificial intelligence and machine learning, bringing their digital vision to fruition is easier said than done for all the digital cheerleading from banks and fintechs.

We explore how treasury’s appetite for API solutions for real-time bank balance/transactional information and payment status updates continues to grow, while our Question Answered digs deeper into the evolution of payments. With treasury expertise from HSBC and PayPal, we discuss how corporates can harness the opportunities around embedded finance and using payments data to provide better customer experiences.

This edition’s trade feature explores the trends driving treasury in the shipping industry in an interview with Michael Kastl, Managing Director, Treasury, Finance and Investor Relations at Hapag-Lloyd. Kastl joined the container shipping giant in 1996 but in all his 25-years in the industry, he’s never seen cash levels like today following the sector’s record-breaking pandemic profits. With a new focus on investment in a higher rate environment, Kastl says he is more asset manager than liability manager but also warns a more difficult trading environment will impact the industry’s fortunes and freight rates ahead.

Shipping experts’ observations about global trade flows are also echoed in this edition’s Market View. Analysts at ECR Research argue that moribund growth in China could exert downward pressure on prices in the West.

Finally, our Corporate View features UAE-based treasurer Sultan Boudargham whose career break came when he was headhunted to join a fast-growing travel group. He urges our readers to never shy away from a challenge and discusses how the belief and trust of his senior colleagues has supported his career journey. He also explains how technology is transforming treasury and the travel industry and concludes with some advice for those climbing the corporate ladder.