Treasurers in Helsinki this morning are ahead on ESG

Jan Dirk van Beusekom is Head of Strategic Marketing with BNP Paribas Cash Management & Trade Solutions. He regularly works with the production of a broad treasurer survey, Journeys to treasury. At Treasury 360° Helsinki on Tuesday, he put two questions to the combined physical/digital audience of the day, and received about 30 answers back to each.

On the question which is the top challenge to the treasury, today’s Finnish answers were largely aligned with the overall average of the Journeys to Treasury survey. Inaccurate forecasting and visibility scored as the topp challenge, with 10 votes out of 31. Second on the list was “greater operational scale and complexity”, at 7 votes, then lack of technology (which puts it higher in Finland than in the broader survey), and resources challenges, each at 5 .

On the question how ESG comes into the thinking for investing excess cash, this morning’s results showed notably more advanced maturity compared with the overall survey. In Helsinki today, only a small proportion answered “Does not affect” – while this alternative is picked by over 50 percent in the total survey. Here, the large majority said it is either a significant factor or at least a secondary consideration. While the proportion of respondents who call ESG a “Primary driver” is still a minority, the proportion in today’s little local survey turned out a lot higher than the 1 percent it scored in the main Journeys in Treasury survey.