The accelerating speed of changes forms a challenging but exciting backdrop for today’s treasuries. This was the takeaway from the opening keynote presentation in Oslo on 3 April, at Felix Konferansesenter.
No rest to digest
Jan Dirk van Beusekom, head of strategic marketing for cash management at BNP Paribas, lined out the main factors in play.
“We used to have time to digest developments in regulation and technology. But now these changes come so fast, we really need to develop the ’agile treasury’,” he said.
Digitalization is, not surprisingly, at the core of the current changes. Automation, various advanced controls, and a trend towards more real-time activities are part of the changes. Treasurers get an increasingly strategic role in relation to CFOs, while also becoming important voices on choices of technology choices.
Cooperation necessary
The way forward, according to Jan Dirk van Beusekom, lies in ambitious collaboration between the banks and the corporate treasury clients. As for his own organization, it has for example started to scan new fintech companies in the startup market, to identify which ones offer services of value to the corporations.
”We have met and rated about a hundred fintechs. We talk and discuss with them and some make it through our funnel,” said Jan Dirk van Beusekom. He mentioned Cashforce – a tool which can simplify cash flow forcasting by connecting with several ERP systems and banks – as well as Confirmations.com, which allows digitilisation of audit confirmations.