A smart treasury fit for the 4th industrial revolution

This paper looks at the importance of Treasury management, within a typical commercial bank and evaluates how digital technology can support this key function in the future. Since the 2008 financial crisis, the role and responsibility of Treasury has grown significantly in terms of scope and strategic importance. There are an ever-increasing number of requirements from Regulators, Senior Management and Shareholders, that Treasury must deliver on - as the guardian of the bank's balance sheet. To meet these growing demands and challenges Treasury needs to consider ways to streamline its operational activities, in order to become more strategically focussed. Leveraging digital technologies associated with the 4th Industrial Revolution can play an important part in the transition towards an intelligent Treasury of the future. However, it is imperative to have a proper and well-defined digital roadmap that can steer the evolution of the Treasury function. This paper's aim is to research and outline an approach that can guide the establishment of a next generation smart Treasury. It considers a couple of management issues common to most bank Treasuries and then demonstrates how these activities can be converted to smart processes through digitalisation.