Following an initial 12,000-person pilot in India, which resulted in the biggest increase of year-on-year career satisfaction, it has been used by 39,000 employees, generating $8.5 million in productivity through 2,700 projects to date.

When employers talk about “the ‘war for talent,’ it is a ‘war for future skills’ that will disproportionately impact business growth and client outcomes,” wrote Tanuj Kapilashrami, chief strategy and talent officer at Standard Chartered, in a blog post. “Technology is disrupting the way we work so quickly that businesses like ours will have a massive responsibility to start focusing not just on employment, but employability.”

This is backed up by the World Economic Forum’s latest Future of Jobs Report, in which nearly half the companies surveyed highlighted building a learning culture and improving talent progression as the most promising ways to cultivate talent availability in the coming years.

Kapilashrami adds that the “skills passport” offers opportunities to reskill or upskill employees.

According to Gloat, talent-matching platforms work like Netflix recommendations: By collecting data about user preferences, they can make tailored recommendations based on an employee’s experiences, the skills they want to build, and what they want to achieve.

In an HR Tech conference opening keynote, Josh Bersin, founder and CEO of HR consultancy Josh Bersin Company, noted, “Internal mobility and talent marketplaces and identifying adjacent skills for employees—allowing people to do gig work—are life-or-death survival strategies in an economy like we’re in today.”

Schneider Electric, a Gloat client, says its marketplace created savings of over $15 million, while fellow client Seagate witnessed a 58% increase in the participation and assignment of women to open internal positions. From cost savings to more agile cross-functional teams, talent marketplaces are future-proofing businesses, aiding career development and improving mobility.   

Replacing Margrethe Vestager, European Commission (EC) vice-president for a Europe Fit for the Digital Age and Competition, Ribera is currently Spain’s third vice-president and minister for the Ecological Transition. Her new position gives her a wide remit: overseeing the EU’s clean energy transition and antitrust enforcement alongside modernization of competition policy.

Whether the overlapping roles will make for effective action, or an insurmountable burden, remains to be seen, but Ribera is tasked with leading the EU toward decarbonization while improving its competitiveness, drawing on recommendations made in a recent report by former Italian Prime Minister and European Central Bank President Mario Draghi.

The Draghi report suggests Ribera faces a formidable task. No EU company with a market capitalization over €100 billion has been set up from scratch in the last 50 years, while all six US companies with a valuation above €1 trillion have been created in this period.

Between 2008 and 2021, 30% of “unicorns” founded in Europe relocated their headquarters abroad, the vast majority moving to the US. In 2021, EU companies spent about half as much on research and investment as a share of GDP as US companies. The EU has only three research institutions ranked among the top 50 globally, whereas the US has 21 and China 15. While she brings decades of policy experience managing Spain’s green transformation, which makes her well-placed to push forward the European Green Deal, Ribera faces a challenge finding “a new approach to competition policy: one that is more supportive of companies scaling up in global markets, allows European businesses and consumers to reap all the benefits of effective competition and is better geared to our common goals,” according to her mission letter from EC President Ursula von der Leyen.

Not that long ago, corporate treasurer—the top slot in every company’s green-eyeshade corps—was about the last position most observers would tag as strategic. While the job has always had a strong risk-management component, the basic task was simple: making sure the company has cash available, when and where it’s needed.

Not anymore. Today, the corporate treasury team plays a critical role helping companies navigate a business environment rife with economic uncertainty, geopolitical risks, regulatory change, trade tensions and supply chain disruptions. And while the latest tools of the trade—artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML)—promise to make tasks such as liquidity forecasting, cash management, and risk management easier, they come with their own complications and tie the treasury team even more closely into management’s strategic planning.

That means corporate treasurers are collaborating closely with other business units and leveraging data and analytics to supply critical insights into finance and risk issues and improve cash flow. Treasury must be able to react quickly to new scenarios while optimizing liquidity in both the short and long term to secure the company’s financial health.

“Things change on a daily basis, which is very different from three or four years ago,” says Herve Carrere, chief product officer, Treasury and Capital Markets, at Finastra. “You have the ongoing wars, conflict with China, high inflation, and [high] interest rates.”

Faced with these challenges, companies must be able to forecast better and produce more efficient and more regular analysis for scenario planning. “Treasurers need to optimize as much as possible and be more agile,” Carrere says. “They need efficient tools to manage cash flows, both cash in and cash out, and to predict the impact of something specific to their treasury needs.”

Cash flow forecasting is a top priority for treasurers, says Niki van Zanten, a former corporate treasurer and now a consultant at TreasurUp, a Netherlands-based fintech serving banks. “It’s an activity, but what is really important is the consequence of that activity,” he notes. “So that could either be that you’re doing cash flow forecasting to make sure, in the very short term, that you have enough liquidity to pay all your salaries and invoices and to make sure everything is clear. But it could also be that you want to make sure you have, for instance, a fixed deal forward—going half a year out from now.”

Liquidity forecasting, which incorporates more data sets to make cash flow forecasting more useful as a strategic tool, is one of the areas where AI and ML can help—but they also create potential problems of their own.

“Many software providers are starting with ML models that accelerate the calculation of select proven models,” says Victoria Blake, chief product officer at treasury and risk-management software provider GTreasury, based in the US. “These models can be helpful as a comparison point in scenario planning and help with decision-making as it relates to treasury applications like forecasting future liquidity requirements.”

AI, by contrast, “requires substantially larger swaths of data to begin providing reasonably predictive model outcomes for these treasury use cases,” Blake says. “Further, the burden of AI effectiveness relies entirely upon the engineering of the underlying model. Meaning, if the AI is a ‘black box’ in any form, it can be difficult to understand and act on the pattern factors that the AI predicts. So, it’s important for treasury teams to first have a deep understanding of these models before using them, to avoid potential false signals and predictors.”

Black box AI systems are not practical for the treasury function, van Zanten agrees.

“They need to see very clearly which data sources they have,” he says, “and they like to use data sources they already know. Doing forecasting, for most corporates, means doing it as well as possible with as little effort as possible, which means that banks must supply all the information they have ready at hand in the format that the corporate can use.”

That said, AI and ML systems answer corporate treasurers’ continuing need for better ways to extract meaning from the numbers.

“We’ve seen how migrating to the right treasury data analytics strategy can absolutely transform how treasury teams interpret and utilize their financial information—and deliver better business outcomes within the corporate suite,” notes Blake. “By tapping into advanced analytical tools, treasury teams can uncover far deeper insights from their increasingly vast volumes of financial data.”

Those insights can include identifying key trends, patterns, and anomalies that might otherwise go unnoticed, providing a clear picture of the company’s financial health.

“Real-time data processing allows for more agile responses to market changes and internal financial shifts,” says Blake. “Predictive analytics can forecast future financial scenarios with greater accuracy, contributing to risk management and strategic planning. Automation in this data analysis process also frees up treasury teams to focus on interpreting results and developing strategic recommendations.”

Financial institutions are busy creating client offerings that harness advanced data analytics. Mike Cummins, head of treasury solutions at Providence, RI-based Citizens Bank, says their focus is on giving clients connectivity options and solutions that help them with liquidity management and fraud prevention.

“Within the realm of treasury management, data analytics are important for a variety of reasons, most importantly strategic and informative business decisioning, cash flow forecasting, and analysis of DPO [days payable outstanding] and DSO [days sales outstanding],” Cummins notes. “Clients benefit by optimizing their working capital and minimizing expense.”

While large corporates with multiple banking partners have treasury management system (TMS) or a forecasting engine doing multiple cash flow forecasts, a midsize corporate with only one house bank and maybe a couple of others and small finance department, and lack the funds to set up their own full-blown TMS, so they get it from their main banking partner.

This is a gap that their main banking partner might be willing to fill. “It’s becoming a sweet spot for banks to supply this,” suggests van Zanten. “For mid-sized companies making between £30 million and £300 million per annum, there is a lot of upside to start doing proper cash flow forecasting and professionalize finance processes. These companies have multiple accounts, multiple currencies, perhaps multiple banks, and a lot of data sources but they don’t have the tools and knowledge most of the time to create comprehensive, consolidated forecasts.”

Application programming interfaces (APIs) are transforming cash management for corporate treasurers by enabling real-time data exchange and automation. Finastra’s API Marketplace allows banks to offer both extendibility and interoperability to corporate clients by enabling collaboration among banks, fintechs, software vendors, and other market participants, Carrere says. FusionFabric.cloud, its collaborative SaaS (software as a service) platform, offers an à la carte menu of treasury services that banks can provide their corporate clients.

“APIs simplify the connectivity with the rest of the participants of the ecosystem depending on what you need, be it payment connectivity, reconciliation, collateral management, etc.,” Carrere says. “They also provide additional revenue for banks, which can offer value-added services to their end customers based on big data models that they can test, validate, and run without needing to engage in a costly project.”

Like APIs, which first emerged in the 1940s but are now ubiquitous, virtual accounts have been around for decades but are now evolving from simple digital sub-accounts to sophisticated financial tools that offer enhanced functionality, expanded use cases, improved security, and valuable insights. These innovations are empowering treasury teams to optimize cash management, reduce costs, and drive business growth.

“Corporates with a high number of physical bank accounts may face challenges around cash visibility and control. Valuable liquidity can often be residing in the wrong place at the wrong time,” says Tom Wood, head of Global Payments Solutions, Commercial Banking, at HSBC UK. “By assigning a unique virtual account number to each business unit and currency, our Virtual Account Management solution can help corporates rejuvenate their cash management. Virtual accounts also support natural cash concentration, reduce reliance on physical accounts and can accelerate the onboarding process of new entities.”

Boosting business growth in a tough economic climate is a challenge, but with tools like virtual accounts and APIs and new process models like SaaS, treasurers can access, aggregate, and analyze real-time data from treasury systems and other sources, providing instant cash visibility and valuable insights that enable them to make better-informed data-driven decisions.

Digital transformation in the banking sector has moved from simply updating outdated systems to becoming a key strategy for boosting profitability. This shift has empowered banks to improve user experiences while streamlining operations. However, with rapid technological progress and ever-increasing customer expectations, banks must remain vigilant and proactive. It’s no longer enough to keep up with digital trends—banks must lead them to stay competitive.

The institutions recognized in Global Finance’s World’s Best Digital Banks 2024—Round 1 demonstrate how continuous innovation and the adoption of new technologies can achieve these goals.

In addition to the regulatory APIs for the revised Payment Services Directive (PSD2), Tatra banka offers commercial APIs for account information, payments, identity verification, and loans. Among the consumer regional sub-category winners in Central and Eastern Europe, Tatra won two awards, including Best Open Banking APIs. Tatra’s Premium API offers connectivity to accounts in other banks via its PSD2 aggregation platform. As the largest PSD2 aggregation provider in Slovakia, Tatra has over 30 partners using its solution and over 9,000 connected accounts.

Citi is a three-time corporate/institutional regional sub-category winner. CitiConnect processed about 3 billion API calls during 2023 (a 150% year-on-year increase); and Mohit Narula, global head of CitiConnect, Treasury and Trade Solutions at Citi, says the increasing demand for real-time, 24/7 capabilities continues to drive digital and API adoption.

Narula says, “Our clients’ business models are changing on the back of the rapidly evolving business environment, advances in technology, and changing consumer demand and expectations. We are seeing more businesses support direct-to-consumer flows, new e-commerce models, and alternate modes of payments, including instant payments.”

As an example, Narula says APIs can enable instant payments and provide required data to corporate clients within seconds. “As clients look for ways to efficiently handle high-volume transactions at a global scale and with the miniaturization of payments, APIs support the creation of impactful and distinct capabilities.”

Fellow North American PNC Bank won for five corporate/institutional regional sub-categories. The bank operates an embedded finance program that allows clients to build innovative solutions for their employees and customers using the bank’s API library. Success stories include AllShifts, an on-demand nurse-staffing agency, which has embedded PNC’s ePayments solution into its mobile app—enabling staff to retrieve on-demand payments immediately after a shift via the payment method of their choosing.

By creating interconnected platforms that offer customers a seamless and comprehensive financial experience, banks create a more customer-centric, efficient, and competitive landscape.

Digitalization enables banks to take advantage of emerging prospects, but new opportunities require new business models. Creating ecosystems through partnerships and collaborations allows banks to improve value propositions that go way beyond what they could offer independently.

The Global Finance Best Digital Bank Awards winners are chosen based on entries provided by financial institutions. Entrants are judged on the breadth of product offerings, success in migrating customers to digital platforms, acquiring and retaining new customers, and using digital technologies to improve business processes, cut costs, and deliver other benefits. Each entry is analyzed by a team of digital and banking experts at Infosys. All final selections are the responsibility of Global Finance.

Global Finance: How does TD approach innovation and what are some of the areas you are exploring?

Montresa McMillan: TD Invent, the bank’s approach to innovation, uses a repeatable model to explore emerging technologies and determine how they can be used to address the real needs of our customers, colleagues and communities. TD colleagues are at the center of this approach: Everyone at TD is encouraged to play a role through a shared commitment to innovate with purpose.

Across the bank, we’re exploring how we can leverage emerging technologies to reimagine the banking experience. Earlier this year, we introduced our first generative artificial intelligence [GenAI] pilots and continued to grow our [Virtual Reality] VR programming. For GenAI, our pilots included a virtual assistant trained on TD policies and procedures to help contact-center colleagues retrieve answers to customer questions in seconds, as well as GitHub Copilot, a programming assistant to help our engineers streamline the coding workflow.

We also launched our Immersive Learning VR pilot, where our colleagues in select branches are using virtual reality to simulate everyday customer interactions and build confidence in a judgment-free space. The feedback has been incredible—almost 80% of our colleagues who participated said VR was more effective than traditional training.

GF: How important are TD employees to TD’s overall innovation mandate?

McMillan: A key principle of TD Invent is that our colleagues are not only encouraged to participate in our innovation ecosystem but to lead the charge. We’ve deliberately worked to create an environment in which innovation is democratized: Our colleagues are empowered to ideate, take ownership of their ideas and see them through to the end.

But we go beyond encouraging innovation—it’s equally important for us to protect it. That’s reflected in our growing patents base, which has grown by 40% in the past three years alone to reach over 1,000 colleagues. TD is now the leading patent filer among financial institutions in Canada. Our iD8 program, which crowdsources ideas from across the bank, is another example of how our colleagues are leading innovation. Last year alone, a record 18,000 ideas were submitted through the program. To date, we’ve implemented more than 9,000 ideas, including one that proposed a new way to bring interns and co-op students together in a hybrid workplace. This led to the creation of our Early Talent VR program, in which virtual reality is used to connect our interns and co-op students across Canada.

GF: What benefits and challenges do you see GenAI bringing to both banks and consumers?

McMillan: GenAI is giving us the potential to transform everyday experiences and make them more intuitive, efficient and personalized for our customers and colleagues. We’re in the early stages of exploring GenAI, and at this moment we’re focusing on using the technology to enhance the work of our colleagues, streamline simple tasks and inspire their creativity.

The results have already been impactful. The testing of our GenAI virtual assistant for our contact centers has already led to a 20% reduction in customer hold times, and our colleagues have begun to resolve inquiries faster than they could before.

With promising early results across the industry, many organizations may be tempted to move faster than they are ready to. At TD, however, our focus is balancing our customers’ desires for convenient digital solutions with the trust they have given us. We’re going to continue to introduce GenAI thoughtfully to maintain that trust.

Global Finance: How is your digital focus helping clients react to ongoing global shifts?

Aaron Chiew: Corporates are facing multiple complexities today. Supply chain disruptions, Asia’s rising middle-income population and the rapid digitalization of financial services have led to a fundamental shift in consumer behavior and the way corporates approach treasury, liquidity and supply chain management. Having embarked on our digital transformation journey since 2014, DBS has been able to quickly roll out digital solutions to help clients address pain points and capture new opportunities that are emerging from these global shifts.

We leverage digitalization around four key focus areas for our clients. The first is to simplify relationship onboarding and make banking with DBS even easier. We transformed small and midsize enterprise [SME] onboarding with enhanced self-service experiences, such as digital and mobile-led onboarding to reduce paperwork and visits to bank branches. We also transformed large corporate onboarding by introducing a Transition Management Suite for clients to integrate their existing bank’s instruction files with us.

The second is to enable effortless transactions for our clients to meet growing global demand for cross-border payments, e-commerce transactions and 24/7 on-demand services. With a single bank account and API integration with DBS Globesend, financial institutions and payment service providers can route their clients’ payments through our global payout network, connecting them with over three billion accounts and digital wallets covering 132 currencies across 190 markets.

The third is to enable dependable servicing by creating new service elements to establish end-to-end service excellence. For instance, DBS launched a Supplier Hub to enhance connectivity across buyer/supplier ecosystems. The Supplier Hub cut the time required to onboard a clients’ supplier under its supplier finance program from two weeks to as little as 30 minutes, while providing suppliers full visibility over their invoices and payments.

The fourth is to protect our clients by ensuring strong digital risk-control processes and investing in malware threat protection to address growing cybersecurity risks. Last year, we implemented enhanced security features in our corporate banking application to proactively protect clients from other applications with risky permission settings, or when screen-sharing is detected.

Collectively, these initiatives enable us to better support clients through the ups and downs and across business cycles. Our clients recognize the value proposition of these initiatives, as reflected in our strong corporate customer-satisfaction ratings across our digital channels, growth in our digital customer acquisition and expanded market share for digital transactions amid an increasingly competitive environment.

GF: How are you bringing accessibility to APIs?

Chiew: Digitalization is an enabler for businesses to capture new opportunities emerging from ongoing global shifts. However, not every business, especially SMEs, has the capability or resources to do so quickly.

With our Digital Onboarding Portal, we are empowering clients in their digital transformation by providing a dedicated storefront to access a comprehensive library of around 180 types of highly modular APIs. These APIs integrate real-time processing of payments, receivables and information enquiries into our clients’ business workflows, enabling them to rapidly scale their digital propositions. On the portal, clients can also learn how each API works and the benefits it brings, lowering the barrier to entry for SMEs seeking to embark on digitalization.

GF: How is generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) benefiting corporate banking?

Chiew: DBS recently announced it would equip its Customer Service Officer workforce in Singapore with a GenAI-powered virtual assistant—CSO Assistant—before the end of 2024. CSO Assistant transcribes customer queries in real-time and does “live” searches on the bank’s knowledge base to quickly retrieve query-specific information. This enables CSOs to to deliver solutions faster—by as much as a 20% reduction in call-handling times.

Beyond customer queries, we are leveraging GenAI to provide clients with transformative efficiencies. For instance, GenAI has enabled us to transform paper-based Banker’s Guarantee, or BG, processes. By inputting BG text documents into an AI playground, GenAI can provide appropriate prompts and reduce the manual effort required to review BG text, allowing the optimization of operations resources toward higher-value opportunities.

Global Finance: What steps have you taken to create a seamless and intuitive digital banking experience?

Levan Gomshiashvili: Creating a seamless digital banking experience is all about putting the customer first. At Bank of Georgia, we believe that a truly exceptional digital banking experience is built on deep customer insights. That has been instrumental for us in designing intuitive interfaces and streamlined processes.

To cater to the increasingly mobile-centric lifestyle, we have adopted a mobile-first approach. Our app is designed to be the primary touch point for our customers, offering a seamless experience for managing their finances on the go.

Ultimately, our goal is to create a digital banking ecosystem that puts customers at the heart of everything we do. By combining customer-centricity with cutting-edge technology, we’re building a future-proof platform that exceeds expectations.

GF: How do you prioritize customer feedback and incorporate it into product development?

Gomshiashvili: We understand that the key to successful product development lies in listening to and understanding our customers. We have seamlessly integrated customer feedback management into our product development process, leveraging customer data, artificial intelligence [AI] and tools like Medallia and Fullstory. Our teams across multiple departments—such as Customer Experience, UX Research, Customer Success Management, etc.—actively engage with our customers to identify their needs and gather valuable feedback.

This feedback is transformed into actionable recommendations for product improvements. Their insights directly shape our offerings, ensuring that our products are aligned with their expectations and needs.

GF: How are you using AI and machine learning to enhance customer experiences and improve decision-making?

Gomshiashvili: At Bank of Georgia, we leverage AI and machine learning to significantly enhance customer experiences and improve decision-making.

Overall, we have more than 50 AI models in production. Our largest AI use-case is naturally in credit decisioning, where we have achieved over 95% automation for consumer loans. This allows customers to obtain loans online under two minutes, 24/7.

On the sales side, we have implemented an AI-powered recommendation system in our mobile app, which has increased digital sales by 10%. This system provides personalized recommendations to customers, improving customer engagement.

Another use-case for us is automating a third of our customer chat interactions using an advanced AI chatbot. This automation provides instant responses to common queries and allows our human representatives to focus on more complex issues, enhancing overall operational efficiency as well as customer satisfaction.

GF: What do you see as the future of banking, and how is your bank positioned to capitalize on emerging trends?

Gomshiashvili: The future of banking is undeniably digital, personalized and inclusive. We foresee a landscape driven by AI, blockchain and open banking, enabling hyper-personalized financial solutions and seamless customer experiences.

Our bank is strategically positioned to capitalize on these trends. We are investing in digital infrastructure, data analytics and cybersecurity to deliver innovative products and services. By fostering a culture of innovation and agility, we are well equipped to partner with fintechs and leverage emerging technologies to create new revenue streams. Our focus on customer-centricity ensures we stay attuned to evolving needs and expectations, enabling us to maintain a competitive edge.

GF: How do you choose the best partnership ecosystem to expand your offerings?

Gomshiashvili: Building a successful partnership ecosystem requires a strategic approach. We prioritize partners who align with our customer-centric vision and complement our core competencies. We seek collaborations that expand our market reach, enhance our product offerings, and drive innovation. By carefully evaluating partners based on their strategic fit, technological capabilities and shared values, we aim to create mutually beneficial relationships that deliver exceptional value to our customers.

“Through continued engagement, we know that many sustainability-focused clients are seeking to balance environmental and social impact alongside financial returns. As such, they are looking for ways to tie their treasury management to their organizational sustainability objectives,” states Sandrine Jourdainne, global head of Deposits and Liquidity Management for Standard Chartered. “Recognizing this, we introduced the ESG-Linked Cash Account so that corporates no longer have to compromise on financial returns or ESG outcomes. With this account, the interest rate on the cash account will be linked to the organization’s ESG-related performance. We are initially launching to clients in Hong Kong and Singapore, with the intention to scale to further markets over the coming months.”

In collaboration with clients, Standard Chartered works to set ESG-related key performance indicators (KPIs) and sustainability performance targets (SPTs) that align closely with their goals. “This targeted approach leads to meaningful change and lays a solid foundation for broader sustainability efforts in the future. The question isn’t whether they should engage in ESG initiatives, but rather how they can weave these into the fabric of their business strategy,” Jourdainne says.

A KPI example, according to Jourdainne, could be Scope 1 and 2 greenhouse-gas emission reduction, say, an SPT for an annual 5% cut. “Should the client achieve the agreed-to ESG-related targets, a preagreed payment of bonus interest will be made within an agreed timeframe.”

The KPIs and SPTs associated with ESG-Linked Cash Accounts will be subject to internal approval and verification, and Jourdainne says clients will be required to provide audited evidence of KPIs being met via a sustainability compliance certificate. The approach to setting the KPIs and associated targets will follow the principles applied to other sustainability-linked products with regard to assessment of the materiality and relevance of the KPIs and level of ambition of associated targets when compared with past performance, peer performance and industry/science-based benchmarks. KPIs and targets will be approved by select individuals within Standard Chartered who have expertise to appropriately assess these milestones.   

Tan, 56, joined the Singaporean multinational lender in 2010. She will spend the transition period as deputy CEO alongside her present role as group head of Institutional Banking. Her appointment is the culmination of a decade-long succession process, the bank said. In a press briefing, DBS chair Peter Seah noted that the process included rotating succession candidates through different parts of DBS’s business and evaluating their performance.

Tan’s resume since joining the bank has included building the foundations of its wealth management business, managing consumer banking and wealth management, and leading day-to-day efforts to operationalize digitalization across those businesses. She was the unanimous choice to succeed Gupta of both the DBS board and an independent consultant that helped benchmark candidates against top names both within banking and outside the industry.

“Su Shan built a very strong foundation for wealth management,” Seah said. “She’s covered the two big parts of the bank that contribute the lion’s share of the bank’s income and she has performed well.”

Tan has big shoes to fill as Gupta’s successor, she told reporters, but “our shoes are different. We wear different kinds of shoes, so our styles may be different. But some things will not change going forward.” The way forward, she said, will still center on the “four C’s” that are integral to DBS: culture, customers, collaboration, and continuity. Tan emphasized the bank’s deep roots as the Development Bank of Singapore, but also its core philosophy of “Neighbors First—Bankers Second.” Having worked in multiple divisions, she added, “I would like to think I can bring a lot more of that collaboration internally: bringing a One Bank solution.”

Modern treasuries face a diverse array of demands, such as real-time payments, high inflation and interest rates, and new compliance and sustainable finance obligations. Faced with foreign exchange and interest rate volatility, the complexities of instant payments and liquidity-risk challenges place a sharp focus on banking partners as treasurers endeavor to safeguard their company’s financial well-being.

Bank of America (BofA), our award winner as Best Bank for Transaction Banking and Best Bank for Collections, works closely with large global organizations that have accounts in multiple currencies, helping them to create liquidity strategies to optimize working capital and weather unpredictable market dynamics. According to Mark Monaco, head of Global Transaction Services, it involves bringing awareness of BofA’s existing solutions, built over the years, and then proactively advising clients on which ones address the various challenges they may face, such as forecasting, increasing costs, and the need to optimize return on cash. “Many corporates have limited experience dealing with uncertainty, especially when combined with very high interest rates, and are unsure how to plan or adjust,” says Monaco. “Some may lack the appropriate treasury management solutions or may not know how to maximize liquidity process efficiency.”

Higher interest rates make unplanned funding shortfalls more expensive, he adds. “These shortfalls are more likely if a company has not fully automated its processes. Resistance to making operational investments when interest rates are high results in many companies looking to cut costs and becoming hesitant to make substantial investments in treasury management solutions.”

As rates change, treasurers may be unsure about how to continue optimizing the value of cash balances and may fall back on “safe” approaches that may not be flexible enough to keep up with the changing economic environment.

Monaco says that in addition to rising rates, high inflation increases the cost of goods and services, eating into liquidity and cash reserves.

“Another factor impacting the delivery of treasury and cash management solutions is the rapidly changing regulatory environment,” adds Monaco. “Across the world, markets are facing new compliance obligations spurred by developments in real-time payments schemes, AML/KYC [anti-money-laundering and know-your-customer measures], cyber threats, sanctions compliance, and data sharing and localization. Companies and their partner banks are having to enhance and improve both infrastructure and processes as a result.”

BofA brought all payments activities under a new Global Payments Solutions division in recognition of the strategic importance of payments to the bank.

Citi, our winner as Best Bank for Cash Management, Best Corporate Cross-Border Payments Solution, and Best Bank for Long-Term Liquidity Management, also recently combined Treasury and Trade Solutions and Securities Services under one umbrella. At the June Citi 2024 Services Investor Day, Shahmir Khaliq, head of Services, noted that “it made sense to bring these businesses together under one portfolio, as they have strong synergies across our entire institutional client base.”

“Our clients are looking for fully integrated solutions across the entire continuum of accept, hold, pay, and finance as they look to scale quickly and globally,” added Debopama Sen, head of Payments at Citi, at the time. She added that acceptance capabilities are powered by Spring by Citi, an end-to-end digital payment acceptance solution. Hold capabilities include integrated liquidity and a banking-as-a-service offering that allows e-commerce clients to serve their merchants and seller customers. Payment solutions then enable clients to manage payouts globally, including navigation of cross-border complexities. And finally, Sen pointed out that for finance, Citi offers tailored offerings for e-commerce businesses, including the ability to offer flexible financing options and working capital management solutions.

According to Lisa Vasic, managing director of Transaction Banking at ANZ, our Best Bank for Payments, instant payment systems and real-time gross settlement now form part of a broader payments ecosystem. “Connected, automated, insight-driven, and always on, they provide corporate treasuries with an efficient, effective, and safe way to manage their liquidity and working capital, giving them greater control over financial transactions.”

The complex nature of corporate treasury cash management means the adoption has been slower among consumers; but as awareness of the benefits grows, customers are showing significant interest in exploring the path toward a real-time treasury.

“In response,” Vasic explains, “banks across the globe will need to evolve their systems, processes, and security controls to adapt to a 24/7, always-on environment. It’s not about simply turning on a new settlement capability; it’s about re-imagining business processes in light of what the technology can enable, redefining the standard of service that customers have come to expect, and working closely with them to create experiences for their clients.”

Over the past seven years, ANZ has significantly invested in technology to offer unprecedented flexibility and transparency.  Vasic adds that ANZ’s payments and cash management business success is the result of long-term system and platform investments  that support customer transactions, while not losing sight of the basics. “As banks continue to invest in digital transformation, it’s crucial to think long-term and to recognize the complexities, opportunities, and challenges. Ultimately, competition and innovation in the industry are driving better outcomes for clients.”

Having released a whitelabeling service for its enhanced liquidity management solutions LiquidityDirect and an open-banking payments solution (Bankify) that helps organizations receive consumer payments from bank accounts in 2023, BNY is our Best Bank for Financial Institutions and Best White Label System Provider – Bank. The bank has enabled a real broadening of treasury and cash management solutions.

Backbase wins as Best White Label System Provider – Non-Bank, offering white-label engagement banking solutions to more than 40 business banks, credit unions, and community banks around the world. These include Coutts, National Bank of Canada, BECU, and Standard Bank, who leverage the Backbase platform to drive customer loyalty and wallet share across onboarding, loan origination, daily banking, and investments.

If strong cash flow is important to large corporations, it is the lifeblood of small to midsize enterprises (SMEs). To better serve them, Industrial Bank of Korea (IBK), winner as Best Provider of Short-Term Investments/Money Market Funds, created the Small and Midsize Industry Financing (SMIF) bond—a unique product aimed at securing stable financing for SMEs.

During periods of market volatility, SMIF bonds exhibit two distinct strengths that make them a preferred choice for funding. “SMIF bonds enjoy a superior credit rating compared to other bank bonds, leveraging IBK’s strong creditworthiness as a government-owned bank. According to Moody’s, while bank bonds are mostly rated Aa3, SMIF bonds are rated Aa2. This higher rating enhances their attractiveness as a liquid asset. In 2023, SMIF bonds saw an annual issuance of 50.7 trillion South Korean won [about $36.7 billion], with an outstanding balance reaching KRW73.8 trillion by year’s end,” states Kim Sung-tae, chairman and CEO at IBK. “During uncertain market conditions characterized by investor risk aversion and cautious attitudes, SMIF bonds’ higher credit rating provides a significant advantage over traditional bank bonds.”

The bonds also provide greater investment diversity—offering various options to a wide range of investors, including individuals, corporations, and institutional clients. “Amid uncertainty, where short-term fund management demands rise, SMIF bonds cater to varied investor needs regarding investment duration and strategies. The bonds provide flexible maturity periods ranging from 30 to 364 days and offer investment structures such as lump-sum and installment plans,” Kim says. “Additionally, to meet growing market demands for ESG [environmental, social, and governance] investments, SMIF bonds are also issued in ESG-bond formats, effectively addressing the diverse preferences of investors.”

As companies of all sizes strive to improve cash management systems in a cost-effective way, they will seek out the financial institutions that can provide the best tools to enhance treasury processes in a nimble manner, helping treasurers to be proactive in the current uncertain economic market.

Global Finance editors select the winners for the Best Treasury & Cash Management Awards with input from industry analysts, corporate executives and technology experts. The editors also use entries submitted by financial services providers, as well as independent research, to evaluate a series of objective and subjective factors. It is not necessary to enter in order to win, but experience shows that the additional information supplied in an entry can increase the chances of success. In many cases, entrants are able to present details and insights that may not be readily available to the editors of Global Finance.

 This year’s ratings are based on the period from January 1, 2023, to December 31, 2023. 

Global Finance uses a proprietary algorithm with criteria—such as knowledge of local conditions and corporate customer needs, quality of product and service offerings, financial strength and safety, market standing, compliance and excellent customer service—weighted for relative importance. The algorithm incorporates various ratings into a single numerical score, with 100 equivalent to perfection. In cases where more than one institution earns the same score, we favor local providers over global institutions, and privately owned banks over government-owned ones.

The winners are those financial services providers that best meet the specialized needs of corporations engaged in global business. These top-notch finance institutions are not always the biggest, but rather the best—those with qualities that companies should look for when choosing a provider.