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Treasury Technology Trends in 2024: How APIs, AI, and RPA Change the Treasury Landscape?

This article is written by Nomentia Treasury technology trends are developing at a rapid pace and like in other industries, the names of new emerging technologies are popping up here and there. It’s only natural, though. For the last decade, we have been talking about digital transformation and Treasury has truly embraced the idea of digitalizing and automating processes. Still today, the evolution of treasury continues. If someone wasn’t convinced about digitalization five years ago, they’re now witnessing development occurring at an accelerated pace. Treasury teams are now evaluating which processes require improvement. While some companies are just starting to implement treasury management systems to improve their ways of working, others are always frontrunners in adapting exciting new technologies, and they are paving the way for others. While working with clients, we often come across treasury teams that are ready to provide us with new ideas to develop our solution further, so they could be among the first to implement something new that would benefit them but also benefit the rest of the treasury community. A while back, our clients helped us develop a rule-based fraud detection engine to catch anomalies in outgoing payments, while today, we hear from clients that some of them are developing business cases for using AI in cash flow forecasting. But before going through the trending technologies like APIs, RPA, or AI, we’ll take a look at how treasury management systems have developed over the years and where they are today. Treasury today: moving from on-premise solutions to the cloud One of the most significant developments of the last decade has been that solution providers have started to move from providing on-premise solutions to hosting everything on cloud platforms (like Microsoft Azure or AWS), offering their services as software-as-a-service. The change has been massive: it meant that solutions could be taken into use much more rapidly than before with less support from IT, the solutions were more secure and highly available, and monthly updates and major releases were available for all users once published. Cloud-based TMS solutions have enabled treasury teams to build their roadmaps differently As vendors have started to offer cloud-based treasury management software, treasury teams have more opportunities: they could plan the treasury roadmap using a best-of-breed approach. The best-of-breed approach means that it’s possible to implement solutions at one’s own pace or even take solutions from several vendors. Earlier, a company could have implemented the best TMS on the market, yet the TMS could have lacked certain functionalities that they needed. With a modular approach, it’s still common that the Treasury team implements a robust TMS, but at the same time, the team could find a solution from another vendor that would have better possibilities and functionalities and could be integrated with the TMS, ERP, and banks to ensure that the processes work seamlessly. This has been a huge step forward, as Treasury teams could start selecting the solutions that best fit their challenges and needs, instead of settling for a single solution that may not fully satisfy all their requirements. Integration, bank connectivity, and process automation are essential in treasury Integrations have also played an important role in how Treasury teams have developed their technology stack. Building integrations between different cash and treasury system solutions has become the new norm. Perhaps, still, the biggest priority is setting up the integration with the primary and secondary ERP systems, as the reliance on real-time information is even more important when multiple solutions are relying on accurate data. Bank connectivity is also a solution that treasury teams are seeking, especially when the business is starting to grow. One can manage one or two connections internally, but the moment treasury needs to handle global operations, investing in a bank connectivity solution is a must. Now, after we have gone through the basics that have been shaping the Treasury of today, it’s time to look at the technologies that could shape the Treasury in the upcoming decade. Treasury Technology Trends that are shaping the future of Treasury APIs, AI, RPA, ML, Blockchain, Big Data, Data Analytics… you have been hearing these terms all over the internet in different contexts. Consultants and analysts are pushing these topics daily as the next big thing. These are the Treasury technology trends shaping the future of treasury and we’ll take a look at how API, RPA, and AI could be shaping how you work daily in treasury and finance. APIs will change how we connect systems APIs (application programming interfaces) are a set of definitions and protocols for integrating software solutions. With the help of APIs, the products you are using can communicate with each other. Usually, developers implement APIs to ensure they offer simplicity in connection, flexibility, and thus serve as an excellent starting point for innovation – whether you aim to automate processes or access real-time information from a specific source. Perhaps one of the biggest use cases is to connect different treasury and financial software using APIs. Modern SaaS solutions usually offer built-in API connections and the faster you can connect your technology stack, the faster you will be able to automate different tasks or obtain data from various sources. Banks have been investing heavily in API development over the years and most banks offer Premium APIs for treasury and finance teams to facilitate automation between your banks and your financial systems. We recommend that you familiarize yourself with the different offerings of your banks to know what’s possible with APIs and how you could utilize them in your daily work. Robotic Process Automation (RPA) could be the answer to repetitive tasks Robotic process automation (RPA) is a technology solution that relies on using robots or “bots” to automate simple, repetitive, or rule-based business processes. The tasks are often manual, time-consuming, and error-prone. The robots are mimicking human interactions with software, systems, or applications, and they perform tasks such as data entry, data extraction, calculations, or other similar routine operations. RPA relies on pre-defined workflows, data manipulations, and solution-making decisions based…