Treasury Management Function: Trends for 2025

The past decade has seen some rapid changes in the financial and technological landscape—changes that have also touched the treasury function and profoundly altered its role within the business. Treasury managers are still tasked with safeguarding liquidity, optimising working capital, and managing financial risks, but to stay competitive, businesses rely on their treasury department for forecasts, planning, and leveraging cutting-edge technology and innovative practices to stay ahead of the curve. Additionally, the role of treasurers in corporate finance has become crucial, as they facilitate company growth through investment decisions based on financial data, requiring a deep understanding of financial markets and instruments to manage investments and risks effectively.

As 2024 comes to an end, we are reflecting on the major trends that have emerged and are likely to affect treasurers in 2025—real-time liquidity management, machine learning (ML) and artificial intelligence (AI), ESG, and API-driven systems. These advancements are setting the stage for the treasury to become more agile, resilient, and strategic than ever before.

In this article, we explore each of the trends that will shape the treasury function in 2025 and beyond and discuss the implications for your business.

Real-time treasury is here, and it’s becoming a necessity for treasurers to make proactive decisions and for organisations to stay competitive. The traditional way of aggregating and consolidating financial information from multiple sources yielded poor results due to manual work prone to errors and lacking actionable information. By the time data was collected and processed, it was likely already out of date, especially in large organisations with numerous inflows and outflows.

Real-time treasury changes how treasurers manage liquidity by relying on instant payment systems and API-based connectivity to financial institutions. Thanks to the instant payment systems, cash transfers can be performed seamlessly, 24/7, across all accounts and borders, considerably reducing the time lag associated with wire transfers and improving cash visibility.

API-based connectivity with banks, EMIs, and other financial tools allows treasurers to access real-time data on transactions and cash positions and facilitates automated reconciliations. This real-time data is crucial for managing and minimising financial risk, as it enables treasurers to make informed decisions quickly, avoiding liquidity issues and ensuring compliance with regulatory requirements. Multinational corporations that need to track liquidity and cash positions across multiple subsidiaries, markets, and currencies find that such advancements streamline day-to-day operations and optimise working capital.

Furthermore, real-time payment systems and APIs enable access to ‘just-in-time’ funding. This means that businesses can leverage instant transfers to minimise idle cash, deploy surplus funds into higher-yield investments, and reduce the need for costly overdrafts. Adding automated investment tools, such as money market fund sweeps and unitised time deposits, into a real-time liquidity system can maximise returns while maintaining optimal liquidity levels.

Machine learning (ML) and artificial intelligence (AI) are revolutionising a lot of areas of finance. In the treasury function, ML algorithms can analyse data from multiple sources, including historical datasets, seasonal trends, and market conditions, to identify patterns and correlations that could otherwise be missed manually. This integration of ML/AI technologies is crucial for successful treasury management, as it enhances strategic decision-making and relationship management. Not only does relying on ML increase the speed and accuracy of forecasts, but in the medium to long term, it helps businesses align liquidity with operational needs.

AI-powered solutions, on the other hand, enable more efficient cash conversion analysis and working capital optimisation. Thanks to insights from payables, receivables, and inventory systems, the treasury department can quickly determine when and where liquidity is needed the most. For example, automating supplier payments balances liquidity needs with supplier relationships, while automating follow-ups for invoices on the receivables side streamlines operations.

AI and ML technologies can also be leveraged to support exception management—identifying and flagging anomalies in cash flow patterns based on past data to allow the treasury department to investigate and take proactive action before issues like cash shortfalls arise.

Finally, since treasury managers are more and more required to make medium- and long-term plans for the business, AI/ML-driven forecasting becomes easier and more accurate, as it can incorporate larger datasets and deviations. With those insights, businesses can be more agile and take a proactive approach to their financial plans in the rapidly changing economic environment.

APIs are part of the real-time treasury and, as mentioned before, will be the way forward for the treasury management function. APIs enable seamless and stable connectivity between corporate systems and banking or other financial platforms, representing a major shift from how many businesses still manage treasury and transactions—using static, batch-based interactions. For example, processing supplier invoices and then downloading a batch file to expedite payments.

With API-driven connectivity between the banks and the ERP systems, treasurers can create a centralised dashboard to monitor, in real time, account balances, cash positions, and transactions, including inflows and outflows. The instant visibility enables proactive decision-making, more accurate planning, and liquidity management.

An additional advantage of APIs is automating repetitive manual tasks by treasury professionals such as reconciliation of payables and receivables, payment processing, and intercompany funding. With less manual work and fewer errors, treasury teams are free to devote their time to more strategic initiatives.

A skilled treasury team can navigate future financial challenges and engage effectively with stakeholders by leveraging API-driven systems. As APIs continue to mature and develop, their role in enabling secure and efficient data exchange will be critical in shaping the future of treasury operations and fostering innovation and competition in the financial ecosystem.

Environmental, social, and governance (ESG) factors are among the most spoken-about topics in finance, and treasurers are increasingly more concerned with aligning business and financial strategies with sustainability goals. As ESG importance increases, the treasurer's role as the guardian of company funds plays a pivotal role in aligning financial priorities with sustainability goals.

In practice, this means that the treasury management function is tasked with the strategic objectives and evaluating the credentials of their financial partners and the investment portfolio to prioritise green bonds, sustainability-linked loans, and other financial instruments that support ESG initiatives. Risk mitigation plans should also include sustainability and climate risks and how these can impact supply chains, revenues, and operational costs. Treasurers may need to collaborate with other departments to gather the necessary information.

The ESG-related risks and credentials need to be tracked and reported on in line with regulations for ESG reporting requirements. This forces treasury managers to invest in technology and tools that allow for enhanced data collection and transparency around appropriate metrics.

Integrating ESG criteria into cash and treasury management contributes to overall business sustainability objectives and improves reputation among stakeholders and investors.

With the growing number of companies operating cross-border, so is the adoption of the treasury-as-a-service (TaaS) models. Treasury-as-a-service provides businesses with an outsourced treasury management function offering capabilities such as liquidity and cash management, regulatory compliance and reporting without requiring significant in-house resources.

For multinational corporations, TaaS solutions simplify the challenges associated with managing cash across currencies, jurisdictions, and banking relationships.

The success of the TaaS model can be attributed to two factors: scalability and specialisation. Without significant in-house resources, businesses can expand into new markets by leveraging the expertise of their TaaS provider to navigate geopolitical uncertainties and volatile market conditions. That way, businesses can adapt to new market requirements faster and achieve a quicker time-to-market, giving them a competitive edge.

In addition, TaaS providers rely on advanced technology infrastructures, incorporating AI-driven analytics and real-time insights. Outsourcing their treasury function to a specialised provider reduces costs associated with implementing advanced treasury software and allows businesses to focus on their core operations.

The treasury management function is likely to play a pivotal role in finance in 2025, given the impact of ESG, real-time liquidity risk management, AI-driven forecasting, and API-powered systems. Treasurers are no longer passive guardians of company assets—they are active participants in company financial strategy, and the trends shaping next year reflect this reality.

As these trends converge, treasurers and businesses must embrace innovation and invest in technology to remain competitive. Partnering with the right technology providers that respond to these trends, adhere to core principles of liquidity management, risk mitigation, and sound financial stewardship, and give the business a competitive edge will remain critical.