When the UK government announces a £1bn fund to develop AI tools that can process planning applications faster, it’s a clear sign of the times. Across both public and private sectors, intelligent automation is no longer a luxury, it’s a necessity. In finance, and particularly in treasury functions, new tools and processes are already reshaping the way teams operate.
A recent survey of 1,000 senior finance leaders across the UK and Europe, commissioned by Censuswide for Equals Money, found that 81% have ramped up their use of automation in the last 12 months.
While the time-saving benefits are obvious, it’s about more than that. Automation is leading back-office finance teams to greater accuracy, fraud prevention and smoother compliance. Ultimately, this is helping to strip out drudgery and reposition finance as a strategic driver for business growth.
A third of businesses said their finance teams are overwhelmed by regulatory red tape. As markets become more fragmented, the volume of obligations for compliance grows.
The European Union’s new VAT in the Digital Age (ViDA) reforms are a perfect example of where treasury teams are being pulled deeper into regulatory complexity. As they roll out in 2025, treasurers and finance leads must overhaul invoicing systems, adapt to local requirements in multiple EU member states and integrate new reporting tools.
With so much new complexity to contend with, manual processes for data entry, reconciliation and fraud detection, only exacerbate the problem.
This is where embracing automation and AI has the power to be transformational for finance teams. Over 72% of those we surveyed say automation reduces fraud and errors, while over a third report that it “significantly” improves both accuracy and fraud detection.
Treasury leaders are not just digitising old processes; they’re future proofing their operations. Our research revealed the top five areas of investment in the next 12 months, which reflect a shift toward connected, intelligent systems:
While automation is functional in many ways, and 49% of finance leaders still cite time savings as the primary driver behind automation, the research reveals that to almost all (99%) its greatest value lies not in the tasks it performs, but in the time it frees up, allowing finance teams to focus on more strategic, high-impact work.
In the last year alone, 50% of the European businesses we surveyed automated billing and payroll, 45% adopted subscription automation and 40% began using digital wallets. These aren’t just tactical upgrades, they’re foundational changes enabling finance to operate more efficiently and influence more broadly, as well as representing significant cost-savings for businesses.
As governments and businesses alike embrace intelligent systems to reduce complexity, treasurers have a critical opportunity to lead. Automation is no longer about doing things faster, it’s about doing them smarter, more securely and with greater strategic impact.
With the right investments in connected systems, treasury teams won’t just keep up, they’ll get ahead.
James Simcox is chief operating officer of Equals Money
Equals Money has developed a free Efficiency Calculator to help businesses identify the hidden costs of manual financial processes, from invoice management to cross-border payments. Treasurers can use it to estimate how much time and money they could currently be wasting by continuing to use manual processes, because knowing where to start is often the hardest part.
Explore the Efficiency Calculator and learn more about Equals Money’s smart treasury tools.