Corporate treasury in flux:Resilience, realignment, and redefinition

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At the Trade Treasury Payments (TTP) Offices in London, TTP Editorial Director Deepesh Patel sat down with Baris Kalay, Managing Director and Head of Large Corporate Sales for EMEA at Bank of America, to discuss how corporate treasurers are responding to shifts in the macroeconomic and digital landscapes.

Kalay said, “Volatility in the world is increasing – geopolitical uncertainty, FX volatility, divergent rates – and in a volatile environment, it’s critical to go back to basics.”

For treasurers, that means reaffirming core principles like cash visibility, cash concentration, and working capital efficiency. As markets grow more unpredictable, so too does the need for precise liquidity control. “When a treasurer faces a crisis, the first question they’ll be asked is: Where is the cash? Can we access it?”

Kalay noted that cash visibility enables quick decision-making, while concentration structures help maximise yield and reduce costs. From there, the focus shifts to optimising working capital by tightening DPO, DSO, and inventory cycles to unlock excess cash that can be used to manage debt or fund operations. Traditional instruments like supply chain finance are critical, but Kalay sees new tools emerging. “Using corporate and commercial cards to unlock working capital in B2B cycles is something that’s gaining more attention,” he said.

Another area demanding greater attention is risk management. In an era of diverging monetary policy and widening rate gaps, FX and interest rate risk require renewed scrutiny. “Managing FX rates is a fundamental exercise in today’s environment,” Kalay said.

Digital acceleration and the rise of D2C models

Beyond macro forces, technological shifts are reshaping how corporates operate and how treasury functions in turn. E-commerce has brought about a material shift in business models, with many firms adopting direct-to-consumer (D2C) strategies.

“We see a shift from traditional sales models to D2C via e-commerce,” Kalay said, citing examples across sectors. In automotive, legacy manufacturers are increasingly bypassing franchise dealers to sell vehicles directly online. In footwear and apparel, the move away from intermediaries is well underway. Even in entertainment and gaming, developers are now distributing their products directly to end users.

These changes have profound implications for treasury. “In the traditional model, treasurers dealt with low-volume, high-value payments with long settlement terms like 30, 60, or 90 days. In the e-commerce model, you have high-volume, low-value transactions settling on a T+0, T+1, or T+2 basis,” he explained.

Treasurers must now manage FX exposures across numerous micro-payments, often routed through digital platforms or third-party ecosystems. “These payment flows are more exposed to fraud risk,” Kalay noted, “so fraud prevention is becoming an increasingly important topic.”

Perhaps most significantly, e-commerce is pushing treasury closer to the customer. With every transaction, data becomes available that can inform consumer behaviour analysis, which in turn helps shape strategic treasury decisions. “Treasury is becoming a more strategic function,” Kalay said. “And as we move into digital sales channels, treasurers are getting closer to data and insights that used to sit in other parts of the business.”

Rethinking the talent pipeline

These transformations (both macroeconomic and digital) are forcing a reassessment of treasury’s talent needs. Traditionally staffed by individuals with accounting or finance backgrounds, treasury is now drawing interest from a wider pool.

“The evolution of treasury is bringing it closer to technology,” Kalay said. “That means treasurers need to be open to different skill sets like data analysis, technology, or even coding.”

The trend is already visible among Bank of America’s clients, many of whom are mid-transformation. “Almost every treasurer we speak to is managing a transformation project,” he said. Even internally, Kalay’s own hiring patterns reflect this shift. “When we look for new talent, we’re getting applications from debt capital markets, from investment banking, from PCM. Treasury is becoming a hot topic across the financial industry.”