The recent Technology Risk and Smart Treasury forum offered a great opportunity to step out of day to day business for an afternoon and consider the future direction of treasury and technology.
The first session presented by Andrew Fletcher from Thomson Reuters labs provided a fascinating insight into the developing tools available to track customer interests. The recent Brexit and US presidential elections were decided within the forecasting error of most opinion polls (and worse the polls typically showed a greater probability for remain and Hilary Clinton), dealing a blow to the forecasters and so it is easy to see how the development of real data on consumer behaviour could be invaluable. Andrew explained that satellites could be hired at what for most corporates would be relatively low cost and used to monitor any point on the planet, with the kind of zoom capability of google maps. He gave the example of being able to monitor a supermarket’s car park and their competitors. This seems both exciting and slightly worrying!
Andrew Harrison, from Learning Studio, spoke to us about change and pointed out the simple (but often overlooked) fact that implementing a new system or technology changes us. This may be empowering (I can now write a blog on a beach) or disempowering (if I’m on a beach I don’t want to be working but may be expected to)! It struck me that the people side of an implementation often gets less thought than the nuts and bolts, and yet a technology lives or dies by adoption.
Naturally, no discussion of technology would be complete without considering the disrupters – for example, Uber and Airbnb have rapidly revolutionised the travel industry. Each simplifies the relationship between the service provider and the customer with an easy to use platform and, crucially, strong adoption with trusted customer reviews. This brought us on to the prospect of automated treasuries, a model which James Lockyer explained some Chinese businesses are targeting as they set up treasury departments for the first time. Much of this technology already exists, from the ability to set up automated execution based on pre-set rules within treasury and dealing systems to automated allocation of payments. However, for established businesses it was felt that this was more complex and was neither economic or possible given the range of legacy behaviours which would need to be changed (as an example, where businesses have hundreds of bank accounts, full automation becomes uneconomic) and so the best that could be achieved was using technology to take out the bulk of regular transactions. Increased dependence on technology and predictable processes may also increase the risk of cyber-crime, something which many in the room had either had a near miss with or knew someone who had been affected.
So, we returned to the world of now and discussed Treasurers’ present day adoption of technology. This has had real benefits, such as the Christian Action Housing Association’s adoption of various collection techniques including pay by mobile, which have helped to reduce arrears and improve the team’s efficiency. However, the common theme was that in treasury, the consequences of getting an implementation wrong, such as sending cash to the wrong place or losing customer funds meant that technology had to be well tested and established before we would consider implementation.
The prospect of an ACT conference attended by Hal, the AI treasurer, or a group of computer programmers still seems a way off but some winning technologies are being established and offer exciting opportunities to better serve customers or to understand treasury risks. Based on the afternoon, I am confident that my peers and I have a good chance of choosing those to adopt wisely.
James Kelly | Group Treasurer | Associated British Ports
