In an era defined by volatility, resilience is strategy. And treasury, once confined to spreadsheets, is becoming the resilience function par excellence.
Across industries, a convergence of forces—ranging from geopolitical uncertainty and volatile capital markets to rising fraud risks, the explosion of data and the promise (and pitfalls) of artificial intelligence (AI)—is pulling treasury into the boardroom.
The function once defined by spreadsheets is now defined by scenario planning, data intelligence, cybersecurity vigilance and technology-driven decision-making.
Treasury’s elevation marks a generational inflection point. Just as the shift from paper ledgers to enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems transformed finance in the late 20th century, the shift from manual finance to data-standardized automation is redefining treasury in the 21st.
The treasurer is now both tactician and strategist, both operator and visionary. As a result, if one thread runs through treasury’s new playbook, it is trust; trust in data, partners and systems.
The winners will not be those who automate faster, but those who adopt and leverage standards more intelligently.
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Scenario Planning as a Strategic Weapon
Among the most striking evolutions in treasury’s role lies in its embrace of scenario planning. Once the purview of strategy consultants and risk officers, treasury departments are now developing sophisticated models that allow executives to test how shocks from supply chain disruptions to interest rate swings might ripple across the business.
Institutions like Bank of America are betting heavily on treasury data intelligence platforms, which promise real-time insights and predictive analytics. These systems aggregate payment flows, liquidity positions and counterparty exposures into dashboards that can guide strategy in the moment. Instead of reconciling figures at month’s end, treasurers are monitoring live data streams.
This shift is not merely about efficiency. Abandoning spreadsheets means breaking free of error-prone, siloed ways of working. With centralized, AI-enhanced platforms, treasury becomes a node of intelligence. The same tools that replace manual reconciliation also empower treasurers to advise on mergers, global expansion and capital structure optimization.
The evolution extends to B2B payments, long dismissed as a back-office concern. Choosing the optimal payment mix is now a growth lever. Flexible, digital-first payment systems are essential for scaling in global markets where expectations around speed, cost and transparency differ widely.
Payments are no longer just about settling invoices; they are about competing in the marketplace.
The Digital Future’s Strategic Fault Lines
But as treasury becomes more connected and data-driven, its exposure to cyber risk intensifies. A single compromised vendor can now expose millions of dollars to fraud. The Baltimore city government’s recent $803,000 loss due to vendor payment fraud underscores the stakes.
Treasury’s proximity to cash makes it a prime target. Fraudsters exploit weak authentication, compromised email accounts and lax vendor verification protocols. As PYMNTS Intelligence reported, treasury leaders increasingly view third-party partners as potential cybersecurity liabilities. The trust-based networks that underpin payments are also potential points of failure.
This risk exposure is forcing treasury to adopt robust identity verification measures and vendor vetting. Companies like WEX, for instance, are deploying KYC solutions from providers such as Trulioo to bolster security in global markets. The message is clear: without strong digital identity and fraud defenses, growth initiatives can collapse overnight.
AI Sits Between Promise and Standardization
If treasury is moving beyond spreadsheets, the enabling force is AI. Startups like Attio, which just secured $52 million for its AI-native customer relationship management (CRM) platform, and logistics orchestration firms like Nauta, which raised $7 million to expand AI-powered capabilities, highlight the capital rushing into AI-driven enterprise tools.
For treasury specifically, AI offers both promise and peril. On one hand, predictive models can forecast liquidity needs. On the other, a fragmented landscape of AI solutions threatens interoperability and trust. Martini.ai’s call for industry-wide automation standards reflects this tension. Without consistent frameworks, firms risk deploying bespoke AI tools that cannot scale or integrate.
The elevation of treasury is not without challenges. Legacy systems, organizational silos and resistance to change can slow progress. Cyber risk remains a moving target. AI adoption raises questions of bias, explainability and compliance. Yet the trajectory is unmistakable.
What ties these ongoing innovations together is the broader narrative of the end of manual finance. Finance teams across industries are confronting the limits of human-centered processes. Spreadsheets, PDFs and manual reconciliations simply cannot keep pace with the velocity of global capital movement.
For companies navigating a future of uncertainty, the question is no longer whether treasury belongs at the strategy table. It is whether the company can afford to make decisions without them.
