Improving cash visibility is the top priority for treasurers working in Asia-Pacific over the next 12-24 months, according to new research.
This was identified as the primary area of focus for over 60% of treasury professionals who were questioned for the Asia Pacific Treasury Management Barometer survey.
Other priorities for Asia-Pacific treasurers were yield enhancement and interest expenses (cited by 44%), cash concentration (44%), rationalising bank accounts (38%) and mitigating counterparty risk (31%).
Treasurers identified cash flow forecasting as a particular source of pain when operating in the Asia-Pacific region. Only 14% of respondents said they were completely satisfied with their cash flow forecasting processes and 66% revealed that they don’t use treasury tools for cash flow forecasting.
The research found that unsatisfactory cash flow forecasting processes are largely due to complications arising from internal platforms, policies and procedures.
The top five factors that inhibit accurate cash flow forecasting are inaccurate sales targets and projections (35%), lack of internal systems integration (35%), limited availability of resources (23%), ineffective centralised reporting processes (23%) and inefficient collections processes (19%).
Meanwhile, across both emerging and developed markets, 69% of treasurers and treasury professionals still rely on spreadsheets to run their treasury management operations.
Enterprise resource planning and in-house systems are favoured by 26% and 23% of treasurers respectively. An additional 16% of companies opt for a specialist vendor for technology requirements such as hosted or cloud-based solutions.
Commenting on the survey results, Ivo Distelbrink, head of global transaction services, Asia Pacific, Bank of America Merrill Lynch, said: “Domestic reform and increasing internationalisation will continue to be the key challenges facing treasuries across Asia for the next 12 to 24 months, a sentiment echoed in their unanimous top priority of ‘cash visibility’.”
Sally Percy is editor of The Treasurer