This article is written by Nomentia
Treasury technology trends are developing at a rapid pace and like in other industries, the names of new emerging technologies are popping up here and there. It’s only natural, though. For the last decade, we have been talking about digital transformation and Treasury has truly embraced the idea of digitalizing and automating processes. Still today, the evolution of treasury continues. If someone wasn’t convinced about digitalization five years ago, they’re now witnessing development occurring at an accelerated pace. Treasury teams are now evaluating which processes require improvement.
While some companies are just starting to implement treasury management systems to improve their ways of working, others are always frontrunners in adapting exciting new technologies, and they are paving the way for others. While working with clients, we often come across treasury teams that are ready to provide us with new ideas to develop our solution further, so they could be among the first to implement something new that would benefit them but also benefit the rest of the treasury community. A while back, our clients helped us develop a rule-based fraud detection engine to catch anomalies in outgoing payments, while today, we hear from clients that some of them are developing business cases for using AI in cash flow forecasting.
But before going through the trending technologies like APIs, RPA, or AI, we’ll take a look at how treasury management systems have developed over the years and where they are today.
One of the most significant developments of the last decade has been that solution providers have started to move from providing on-premise solutions to hosting everything on cloud platforms (like Microsoft Azure or AWS), offering their services as software-as-a-service.
The change has been massive: it meant that solutions could be taken into use much more rapidly than before with less support from IT, the solutions were more secure and highly available, and monthly updates and major releases were available for all users once published.
As vendors have started to offer cloud-based treasury management software, treasury teams have more opportunities: they could plan the treasury roadmap using a best-of-breed approach. The best-of-breed approach means that it’s possible to implement solutions at one’s own pace or even take solutions from several vendors. Earlier, a company could have implemented the best TMS on the market, yet the TMS could have lacked certain functionalities that they needed.
With a modular approach, it’s still common that the Treasury team implements a robust TMS, but at the same time, the team could find a solution from another vendor that would have better possibilities and functionalities and could be integrated with the TMS, ERP, and banks to ensure that the processes work seamlessly. This has been a huge step forward, as Treasury teams could start selecting the solutions that best fit their challenges and needs, instead of settling for a single solution that may not fully satisfy all their requirements.
Integrations have also played an important role in how Treasury teams have developed their technology stack. Building integrations between different cash and treasury system solutions has become the new norm. Perhaps, still, the biggest priority is setting up the integration with the primary and secondary ERP systems, as the reliance on real-time information is even more important when multiple solutions are relying on accurate data.
Bank connectivity is also a solution that treasury teams are seeking, especially when the business is starting to grow. One can manage one or two connections internally, but the moment treasury needs to handle global operations, investing in a bank connectivity solution is a must.
Now, after we have gone through the basics that have been shaping the Treasury of today, it’s time to look at the technologies that could shape the Treasury in the upcoming decade.
APIs, AI, RPA, ML, Blockchain, Big Data, Data Analytics… you have been hearing these terms all over the internet in different contexts. Consultants and analysts are pushing these topics daily as the next big thing. These are the Treasury technology trends shaping the future of treasury and we’ll take a look at how API, RPA, and AI could be shaping how you work daily in treasury and finance.
APIs (application programming interfaces) are a set of definitions and protocols for integrating software solutions. With the help of APIs, the products you are using can communicate with each other. Usually, developers implement APIs to ensure they offer simplicity in connection, flexibility, and thus serve as an excellent starting point for innovation – whether you aim to automate processes or access real-time information from a specific source.
Perhaps one of the biggest use cases is to connect different treasury and financial software using APIs. Modern SaaS solutions usually offer built-in API connections and the faster you can connect your technology stack, the faster you will be able to automate different tasks or obtain data from various sources.
Banks have been investing heavily in API development over the years and most banks offer Premium APIs for treasury and finance teams to facilitate automation between your banks and your financial systems. We recommend that you familiarize yourself with the different offerings of your banks to know what’s possible with APIs and how you could utilize them in your daily work.
Robotic process automation (RPA) is a technology solution that relies on using robots or “bots” to automate simple, repetitive, or rule-based business processes. The tasks are often manual, time-consuming, and error-prone. The robots are mimicking human interactions with software, systems, or applications, and they perform tasks such as data entry, data extraction, calculations, or other similar routine operations. RPA relies on pre-defined workflows, data manipulations, and solution-making decisions based on pre-defined rules. Typically, implementing an RPA solution does not require major changes in the IT environment; therefore, it is a cost-effective solution for automating simple tasks and is often less complex than traditional data integration.
Treasury and finance departments have been showing interest in adopting RPA solutions to streamline and automate various financial and administrative processes to minimize the need for error-prone manual work.
Some of the typical tasks that treasury and finance could automate using RPA are account reconciliation, invoice processing, payment processing, collecting data from various sources for cash flow forecasting, data entry, and data migration tasks, processing bank statements, calculating interest, or sending automated notifications regarding certain processes.
To start with RPA in treasury, the team should always identify whether there are processes that are repetitive and rule-based that would be suitable for automation. Once the processes are identified with an RPA consultant, it’s time to outline how the workflow would look, what inputs are required, and how to set up the integration with the existing systems. Once the solution is designed, it’s time to implement it after testing and validation. Depending on your organization, whether you have internal resources for creating RPA workflows or there are managed service providers, you will have to make sure that you monitor and maintain the solution, considering any future changes and how it could be scaled.
In 2024, artificial intelligence needs no introduction; all of us have been testing out ChatGPT and various other tools. As the hype is so huge around the technology—for a good reason—treasury experts are also weighing in on how AI could change the workflow of treasury and finance teams. You can read articles on how AI is going to revolutionize cash forecasting, risk management, fraud detection, automation, and even day-to-day activities. While the opportunities are endless, treasury needs to ensure security and compliance, therefore, there is still a long way to go before treasury teams adopt AI.
The U.S. Bank has published an interesting article on the relationship between AI and treasury. Experts at the bank understood that before a Treasury department can think of how to utilize AI, they need to understand their business processes and how their team works. Based on this, the Treasury should be able to identify inefficiencies in core processes and determine whether AI could help optimize them.
At the same time, we just recently talked to one of our speakers at the Nomentia Treasury Summit in Helsinki 2024 about how they are currently building a business case for utilizing AI in cash flow forecasting. It’s important to mention that they have been using a TMS for many years and have created sustainable cash forecasting processes.
While AI offers endless possibilities, most Treasury departments still need to focus on optimizing their current ways of working and setting up essential business processes before it’s time to start experimenting with AI.
In the world of treasury management, exciting opportunities lie ahead as advanced technologies like APIs, RPA, and AI come into play. Let’s recap briefly how you can make the most of these innovations in their future operations:
APIs will be a powerful tool for connecting various financial software seamlessly. Many banks are now offering Premium APIs, which can be invaluable in optimizing Treasury workflows and enhancing overall efficiency, so we suggest that you keep following the recent API developments of your banks.
RPA presents Treasury teams with the chance to automate repetitive and rule-based tasks, removing mundane manual tasks from your daily operations.
AI should be approached with a deep understanding of existing business processes and team dynamics. Identifying inefficiencies within these processes is key. AI has the potential to revolutionize cash forecasting, risk management, fraud detection, and automation, but most companies may need to get the basics right before jumping on the AI bandwagon.
Shortly, Treasury teams that embrace some of these technologies will position themselves as leaders in efficiency and innovation. By strategically implementing APIs, RPA, and AI, they can streamline operations, reduce manual workloads, minimize errors, and make data-driven decisions. This not only benefits the treasury teams but also contributes significantly to the overall success of their organizations.
Treasury Masterminds is a community of professionals working in treasury management or those interested in learning more about various topics related to treasury management, including cash management, foreign exchange management, and payments. To register and connect with Treasury professionals, click [HERE] or fill out the form below to get more information.
By Alexander von Schirmeister,
CEO at Nomentia
A bank portal still works. The ERP still produces data. A spreadsheet still calculates a forecast. A payment approval workflow still moves from one person to the next. Reports still reach the CFO, even if they arrive later than expected. From the outside, treasury appears to function. Inside the process, finance teams know exactly how much effort is required to keep that appearance of control intact.
Modern treasury cannot rely on disconnected systems because the questions it needs to answer are no longer isolated. Cash visibility depends on bank data, account structures, ERP information, payments in progress, forecast inputs, intercompany flows, financing activities, and exposures. Liquidity planning depends on operational data from the business, but also on treasury assumptions, market conditions, working capital movements, and funding plans. Risk management depends on reliable exposure data, but also on trade execution, hedge documentation, limits, reporting, and accounting. If each part of this picture sits in a different place, the treasury team becomes the integration layer.
That integration work rarely surfaces. It lives in copy-and-paste routines, manual file checks, email reminders, reconciliation notes, spreadsheet tabs, and individual memory. It is also where most treasury management challenges quietly begin.
Disconnected systems create time loss because data has to be gathered before it can be analysed. They create duplicated work because teams maintain local trackers even when central tools exist. They weaken cash visibility because the latest view may depend on which bank file has arrived or which entity has responded. They weaken controls because exceptions are harder to identify when workflows are not connected.
The CFO does not usually see the process friction. The CFO sees the answer. If the answer is late, inconsistent, or hard to explain, confidence falls. Senior leadership needs reliable responses to simple but high-stakes questions: How much liquidity is available? Which cash flows are expected? Where is working capital tied up? Are internal payments efficient? Which exposures are material? Are guarantees, hedges, and commitments under control? These questions cannot be answered well when the data behind them has to be rebuilt every time.
The 2026 Nomentia Treasury and Cash Management report highlights that many treasury teams are in a transitional phase. They have moved beyond purely manual treasury, but still rely on multiple systems and partial automation. The pattern is familiar: the organisation has invested in technology, yet treasury still spends too much time reconciling information and validating reports. The issue is not that systems are missing. The issue is that they are not connected enough to support the pace of decision-making.
Disconnected systems are especially risky in three areas.
The first is visibility. If cash positions, transactions, forecasts, and payment statuses are not consolidated, treasury may see parts of the picture but miss the direction of movement. A balance report can show where cash is today, but it does not explain whether the position is temporary, restricted, exposed, or needed elsewhere in the group. Visibility without context can create false comfort.
The second is control. Treasury policies often look clear on paper, but control depends on how processes actually run. Who can approve a payment? Which entities have followed the forecast process? Which exposures have been validated? Which guarantee is close to expiry? Which hedge relationship needs attention? When workflows are disconnected, control becomes dependent on manual follow-up. That may work when volumes are low, but it becomes unreliable as banks, entities, instruments, and reporting expectations increase.
The third is decision speed. In volatile markets, delayed answers are not neutral. A late forecast can affect funding decisions. A delayed exposure view can affect hedge timing. A slow payment status check can affect supplier confidence. A late view of guarantees or credit line usage can affect working capital decisions. Treasury does not need real-time data for every decision, but it does need enough connected information to avoid making decisions with yesterday’s understanding.
A modern treasury management system should not be judged only by feature breadth. The more important question is how well it reduces the gaps between systems, data, workflow, and reporting. A strong setup connects bank information, ERP data, payment processes, cash forecasting, risk workflows, analytics, and audit trails into a reliable operating model. That does not mean every company needs every module at once. It means the architecture should support growth without forcing the team to rebuild its processes every time complexity increases.
Most people researching a TMS today will start with a web search or ask Copilot, Gemini, or ChatGPT. The answer they get back is usually a feature list. That’s not wrong, but it’s incomplete. A good treasury management system helps finance teams centralise cash, payments, forecasting, risk, controls, and reporting so they can make better liquidity and financial risk decisions with trusted data. Features are how it gets there. That’s the distinction worth keeping in mind when evaluating whether your current setup is still fit for purpose.
The path away from disconnected systems does not always require a large replacement project. In many organisations, the better approach is to identify the most painful manual bridges first. Where does treasury re-enter data? Where does the team wait for local input? Where do reports need manual explanation? Where are approvals outside the system? Where is the same number calculated in different ways? These questions show where fragmentation is creating the most business risk.
Connected systems create reliable answers. They reduce the manual work behind cash visibility, improve the quality of cash flow forecasting, and support stronger controls and compliance. They help the CFO understand not only what the numbers are, but what they mean for liquidity, risk, and action. Disconnected systems may still function. But they make treasury work harder than it should, and confident decisions harder than they need to be.
Treasury Masterminds is a community of professionals working in treasury management or those interested in learning more about various topics related to treasury management, including cash management, foreign exchange management, and payments. To register and connect with Treasury professionals, click the button below.
This article is written by TreasuryCube
In an increasingly complex financial environment, In-House Banks (IHBs) have emerged as a strategic imperative for corporations seeking enhanced cash visibility, optimized liquidity, and streamlined intercompany transactions. Drawing insights from a recent presentation by experts at Citi and seasoned treasurers, let’s explore what makes an IHB not just an option, but a cornerstone of modern treasury management.
An IHB is a centralized internal financial entity that manages cash, investments, foreign exchange exposures, and intercompany lending on behalf of corporate subsidiaries. Acting as a “virtual bank” for the organization, it reduces the volume of external banking transactions and provides critical advantages in cash management, governance, and compliance.
Importantly, an IHB is not a regional treasury center, shared service center, re-invoicing hub, or physical licensed bank. It’s a bespoke solution that integrates deeply with corporate finance operations.
An IHB addresses several core challenges that treasurers face:
Real-world IHB implementations, like those led by Brook Ballard at Oceaneering, showcase the tangible benefits:
Intercompany netting further reduces payment transactions, bank fees, and FX costs by consolidating cross-border intercompany settlements.
While beneficial for many, IHBs are particularly advantageous for:
At TreasuryCube, we recognize that the modern treasury is not just about managing cash, it’s about unlocking strategic value. An effective IHB is a critical tool to help achieve that vision, especially when supported by integrated technology, skilled people, and proactive governance.
Treasury Masterminds is a community of professionals working in treasury management or those interested in learning more about various topics related to treasury management, including cash management, foreign exchange management, and payments. To register and connect with Treasury professionals, click the button below.
This article is written by our partner, FIS
The reality of payment fraud has shifted from a question of whether an attack will occur to a growing likelihood of when and how it will occur.
For finance and treasury leaders, the strategies that provided a sense of security a few years ago may be insufficient against a new breed of sophisticated and relentless criminals. A 2024 survey from the Association for Financial Professionals underscored this reality, revealing that a staggering 79% of organizations were victims of payment fraud attacks or attempts.
This is not a distant risk: It’s an active, daily threat that demands a fundamental change in an institution’s defensive posture. The traditional, reactive approach – detecting and responding to fraud after it occurs – is, in many cases, no longer a viable strategy. The time has come to build a proactive defense.
Today’s fraudsters are often not lone actors but organized, well-funded operations that use advanced technology and psychological tactics. They study organizational structures, identify process gaps and exploit the path of least resistance.
Business email compromise remains a dominant method, where criminals impersonate executives or vendors with alarming authenticity to redirect funds. We’re also seeing the rise of AI-powered deep fakes, where a trusted voice on a conference call can be convincingly spoofed to authorize a fraudulent transfer.
These criminals understand that the entire payment lifecycle, from the initial onboarding of a vendor to the final reconciliation, presents a landscape of opportunity. They target the seams in your processes, exploiting the very human desire for efficiency and speed. This “disharmony,” a term coined by a FIS® and Oxford Economics study, captures the friction between the drive for growth and the drag of persistent security threats.
According to the study, 75% of C-suite executives identify fraud as a critical challenge.
How can organizations overcome the evolving threat of fraud? The answer lies in shifting from a fragmented, manual and reactive stance to an integrated, automated and proactive one.
A truly effective defense begins by fortifying the most common entry points. The vendor master file, for instance, is the heart of the payables process and a prime target. A single fraudulent change to a supplier’s bank details can lead to catastrophic losses before anyone realizes an error has occurred.
Overcoming this type of threat typically requires more than just diligence: It often demands a standardized, technology-enforced process. It includes implementing out-of-band verification, such as a phone call to a preverified contact, for any change to payment instructions. It means moving beyond trust and implementing strict, automated validation protocols.
As transaction volumes grow, manual reviews can become an impossible bottleneck, creating the very noise that criminals use to hide their illicit activities. This is where modern solutions like AI-assisted anomaly detection become increasingly indispensable.
Unlike static, rule-based systems that can only catch what they are programmed to look for, AI and machine learning establish a baseline of “normal” payment behavior for each vendor and transaction type. These systems operate in real time, analyzing payments for subtle deviations in amount, frequency or timing that would be difficult for the human eye to detect. When an anomaly is detected, the payment is automatically flagged for investigation before it leaves the organization. This preemptive capability is a game changer.
Organizations can achieve a greater level of control by consolidating their payment flows through a centralized payment hub. Instead of managing disparate security protocols across multiple ERPs and bank portals, a payment hub provides a more unified point of visibility and control.
A payment hub enables the consistent application of security policies, approval workflows and fraud detection analytics across the entire enterprise. It standardizes an institution’s defense, creating a fortress rather than a series of disconnected fences. A payment hub integrated with a third-party account validation service provides another critical layer, confirming that a beneficiary’s name matches their account information before a payment is ever initiated.
Reduce fraud risk and strengthen controls with FIS Payment Hub – Enterprise Edition
The path forward for finance and treasury leaders requires a strategic pivot. It means recognizing that fraud prevention is not merely a compliance checkbox but a strategic enabler of business resilience and growth.
Building a proactive defense involves a holistic approach that integrates advanced technology, standardized processes and a culture of vigilant verification. By embracing AI-driven monitoring, centralizing payment operations and empowering employees with specialized training, you can transform your security posture from reactive to preemptive.
This shift does not just mitigate risk: It builds the confidence and operational integrity necessary to thrive in a complex financial world.
Treasury Masterminds is a community of professionals working in treasury management or those interested in learning more about various topics related to treasury management, including cash management, foreign exchange management, and payments. To register and connect with Treasury professionals, click the button below.
