Many corporate treasurers could not have worked during the pandemic without the technologies that have enabled them to do so, such as cloud-based treasury management systems, online bank portals and videoconferencing tools.
But the scale and speed of the shift to remote homeworking and cloud-based tools came as a surprise even among those with years of experience providing them.
“When the pandemic hit in March 2020, it was unlike anything we had seen before,” recalls Steve Wiley, vice president treasury solutions at financial tech specialist FIS.
“We suspected there would be a need for technology, but we had no idea of the extent of the acceleration of technology adoption.”
Meeting unprecedented lockdown challenges has clearly demonstrated the effectiveness and value of the treasury function to the wider business and emphasised the need for corporate treasurers to have access to flexible and agile software and services.
The rapid transition to remote working and the technologies this requires have massively increased the decentralisation of treasury, which some may see as intrinsically good, some may see as bad and some may be indifferent to.
Either way, the mass exodus from offices to homes does seem to have created some concerns around some aspects of working and collaborating virtually, and the inherent new and increased cybersecurity vulnerabilities.
Access to the technology to work easily, efficiently and effectively from home has been critical for treasury teams and their touchpoints across the business beyond and during the pandemic, but virtual communication is an area where you can have too much of a good thing.
“We have access to fantastic technology these days and once I’m in an online meeting, I firmly believe that I get as much out of it as if the meeting had been face to face,” says Elina Todorova, but the assistant treasurer at Tideway London (which is constructing and delivering a super sewer under the River Thames) does miss the sort of day-to-day workplace encounters that were part of the pre-lockdown business as usual.
For some professionals working in and around the treasury ecosystem, for example, remote working may be difficult to leave behind
“It’s not the organised, structured catch-ups and meetings that have been the problem for me,” says Todorova. “What I miss are those informal chats by the coffee machine or in the lift, or even just overhearing colleagues talking.
“So, working from home does make me feel a bit disconnected from certain areas of the business at times,” she explains.
It’s a perspective that probably resonates with other treasury professionals.
Serendipitous interactions that support collaboration are not easily replicated with the likes of Zoom, Teams and Slack, and when The Treasurer recently conducted a brief readership survey, the challenges of keeping in touch and building meaningful relationships in the virtual world loomed large.
“I think my company has been really good at disseminating information and creating opportunities to chat to more people, but I can’t say it’s been the same and I’m very much looking forward to returning to the office,” says Todorova.
Although treasury is highly collaborative, it may be a while before many treasurers have the option of doing this literally face to face, back in the workplace, and when they do, they may find a carefully balanced hybrid approach that combines homes and offices.
For some professionals working in and around the treasury ecosystem, for example, in advisory and consultancy or software development roles, remote working may be difficult to leave behind.
Evaldas Balkys, who leads corporate treasury advisory services for Zanders, Switzerland, says: “As consultants, we used to live out of our suitcases. Now we run global projects – all remotely.”
As an employee, he has come to see working from home as a viable alternative that does not adversely impact productivity and can even improve it, with the right team in place.
“Videoconferencing cannot replace all face-to-face interaction,” says Balkys. But it has given him the opportunity to know and work with colleagues from foreign branches and made building some relationships even easier than before.
It may even have helped to open some doors that might otherwise have been closed.
Many busy people have no time for long meetings – but when the alternative is a half-hour introductory meeting on Teams, the response is often “Why not?” reports Balkys.
The pandemic has given us the time and technology to get used to being ‘on camera’, master the practicalities and develop etiquette around when to leave the video on or your microphone unmuted, and when to mute yourself and go off camera; shared experiences that have broken down some boundaries and made business less formal.
Balkys clearly appreciates the benefits, but not without reservations: “We must understand what the long-term impact will be on our wellbeing,” he says. “Humans are social beings.”
The potential consequences of suppressing our need for real-world human contact and interaction are not the only remote-working ‘issues’ that we may have to work through, now and going forward.
With so many employees working from home, cyber vulnerabilities and threats have grown.
“COVID-19 has forced many organisations to expedite digital transformation and accelerate cloud migrations, which significantly expands the attack surface and leaves more potential security holes,” says Kamel Heus, vice president EMEA for Centrify, a provider of secure access management for financial institutions.
Some of those in areas of finance, including treasury, may find themselves specifically targeted.
Pandemic-driven changes to working environments and practices, such as virtual onboarding of new workers and the use of insecure home networks and devices, have presented more and better opportunities for cybercrime.
“Cyberattackers no longer ‘hack’ in; they simply log in using weak, default or stolen passwords,” warns Heus.
It’s important that a cyber-aware culture and strong cyber-hygiene practices are maintained across dispersed and remote teams, with homeworkers educated on the latest threats if they are not to become the weakest links in the corporate cybersecurity chain.
Treasurers need to repeatedly review processes, as vulnerabilities and threats evolve.
“The threat posed by cyberattacks to the financial sector has never been greater. Attackers are well-resourced and constantly evolving their modus operandi,” says Brett Lancaster, global head of the customer security programme at SWIFT.
Although messaging networks and banking infrastructure more broadly are potentially lucrative targets, their robust defences are increasingly nudging cybercriminals down the path of least resistance.
Here, they can target less well-defended organisations, networks, software applications, devices and individuals with access to payment systems, to acquire sensitive data or install malware, to use in payment fraud, extortion and other financial crimes.
Cybersecurity was a big concern during our recent reader survey, but adequately addressing it may require treasurers to be more proactive; during system research and selection, for example.
“Treasurers aren’t good at understanding and evaluating cybersecurity risk. They aren’t used to it,” says Wiley.
“When we go in to talk to treasurers about technology and see the scorecard," he explains, "it’s shocking how downplayed cybersecurity risk is. I wish they would ask more questions. Hard questions. Not just tick a box for SOC 1 certification.”
If this was ever enough, he adds, it isn’t any more: “In 2021, cybersecurity risk really needs to be front and centre for treasurers.”
Lesley Meall is a freelance finance and technology writer