Lessons From the Crisis: What’s Next for Treasury?
Report Summary
Lessons From the Crisis: What’s Next for Treasury?
The organizations that most effectively weathered the financial crisis were those with the ability to access mission-critical information that was timely, accurate and usable.
Boston, MA, November 16, 2009 – A new report from Aite Group, LLC highlights the experience of corporate treasury groups and treasury services banks throughout the last year. The report is based on conversations with representatives from some of the largest U.S. banks, along with corporate practitioners and technology vendors, conducted by Aite Group during the 2009 fall conference season. The report details the impact of technology on corporate treasury during the crisis, and makes recommendations for the bank and vendor communities about positioning themselves for recovery and beyond.
In conversations with financial institution executives, Aite Group found that the treasury services businesses of most U.S. banks remained stable and, in some cases, grew fairly significantly, despite the crisis. About two-thirds of top 100 U.S. banks' treasury services' business saw the economic crisis as mostly a non-event, while only one-third experienced a near disaster. Those corporations and treasury services financial institutions that performed best over the past year had developed a strong ability to gather information that was timely, accurate and usable.
"The global economic crisis highlighted the importance of information and usable data for U.S. banks and their corporate clients," says Judson Murchie, analyst with Aite Group and co-author of this report. "This paradigm shift created new market expectations for financial transparency, leveraging the available data necessary for banks and corporations to support strategies and prove financial stability. In most cases, these market expectations actually helped raise the profile of treasury services within institutions, given that business' ability to grow deposits and generate fee-based revenues."
Senior analyst and report co-author Nancy Atkinson adds, "As the economy moves toward recovery, banks must maintain positive momentum and ensure greater customer satisfaction and operational efficiencies going forward. Technology should be leveraged to aid in systems connectivity and integration, provide enterprise fraud prevention and risk management, enhance the customer experience, help corporate customers prevent losses and provide timely and actionable data."
This 37-page Impact Report contains 16 figures. Clients of Aite Group's Wholesale Banking service can download the report.