Banks can no longer operate as islands. Accurate pricing and effective treasury support depend on being connected to broader financial ecosystems, leveraging both internal and external data, and accounting for how market and geopolitical shifts affect rates, liquidity and risk. Without this full picture, banks may deliver outdated pricing and suboptimal services, leaving clients at a disadvantage.
Much of this depends on the technology banks use to set prices. If pricing systems rely on outdated spreadsheets and quarterly reports, treasurers could be leaving real money on the table. Every basis point counts, and if banks are not leveraging AI-powered pricing insights and real-time market intelligence, clients are unlikely to be receiving the sharpest deals.
Traditionally, banks have leaned on historical records and their gut instinct to price deposits, loans and treasury products. But in markets that move weekly or daily, that approach is dangerously slow.
Treasurers are quick to shift balances into money market funds when bank yields lag. And increasingly, boards are asking CFOs to prove that treasury is not just efficient, but also competitive.
In fact, AI adoption in treasury is no longer experimental, it is becoming business critical. A PwC survey shows that 74% of treasurers are either expanding or actively using AI, with particular emphasis on machine learning (71%) and predictive analytics (64%). The most advanced treasury teams are embedding AI into liquidity management, forecasting, fraud detection and even automating reconciliations.
Modern banks must rise to the occasion and harness data, AI-based insights and real-time market intelligence to actively help treasurers make smarter, faster decisions. Their pricing systems must enable bank relationship managers to show how similar deals are being priced in the market, simulate outcomes, react instantly to shifts and provide an auditable trail treasurers can trust when reporting to boards and auditors.
For treasurers, this would mean less guesswork, more transparency and faster turnaround when negotiating deals.
Treasurers need to ask whether their banks have the right technology and capabilities in place and how effectively they are being used. Asking the right questions can quickly reveal if the bank is truly enabling smarter, more agile decision-making or whether they are still relying on outdated systems and processes.
To separate the innovators from the laggards, treasurers can ask their banking partners the following five questions:
Price matters. But for treasurers, so does speed and transparency. AI-augmented revenue management systems eliminate the back-and-forth of manual approvals, cut friction in exception handling, and create audit trails that stand up to scrutiny.
According to McKinsey, commercial banks that lead in AI treat it as a transformational capability, embedding AI deeply in strategy and operations at every level, from automating credit underwriting to AI-driven customer engagement.
Treasurers don’t need to accept “this is how we’ve always done it”. The smartest are already pushing banks to prove they can price with precision, agility, and transparency.
If your bank can’t answer how it uses AI and real-time market intelligence in pricing, it may be time to ask a harder question: are they really the right partner for the road ahead?
Nanda Kumar Sreedharan is SVP Regional Sales and EM (Americas) at SunTec Business Solutions