‘’Intelligent’’ Treasury Management
Artificial Intelligence is still a hot topic these days, and AI can be found on the roadmap of Corporate Treasuries more and more often. Inspired by an article by Polak et al. (2019)*, we will summarize how AI can be leveraged to move from a process efficient Treasury to a value adding Treasury.
Benefits
Applying Artificial Intelligence (AI) or Robotic Processing Automation (RPA) to Treasury Management has two major benefits; streamlining and automating processes reduces both manual effort and error, freeing up time for Treasurers to be a strategic business partner. The second is the possibility to extract valuable trends and insights by collecting, processing and performing (predictive) analytics on increasingly large data sets, for optimal decision making.
Where to start?
Quick wins are key for winning support in an organization. In their article ‘“Intelligent” Finance & Treasury management: what we can expect’, Polak et al. (2019) advice to start with low-level AI with visible tactical benefits to gain support for adopting AI in Treasury.
One of these quick wins could be the further automation of the cash and FX positioning process. The best way to implement this depends on your business needs. In their article, Polak et al. (2019) distinguish between three ways:
Proprietary development; Configuring generic AI tools to Treasury. An example can be found when implementing RPA, as this is often rolled out for more than one department in a company.
Access via technology partners; a custom built, integrated or best of breed solution available in the market that has AI built in, dedicated for a specific or a set of Treasury tasks.
Hybrid; tool with AI built to make suggestions or warnings that have to be chosen or approved by humans.
Cash Flow Forecasting
One use case where AI is already applied in Treasury is in Cash flow Forecasting, where one of the key challenges has always been the collection and analysis of company wide data.
Interested in learning more about this subject?
Watch our webinar on Cash Flow Forecasting and Artificial intelligence, with expert speakers from Cashforce and ION Treasury.
For more information please contact us at businesssupport@orchardfinance.com
*Polak P, Nelischer C, Guo H, Robertson D (2019) ‘“Intelligent” finance and treasury management: what we can expect’