Technology continues to play a pivotal role in modern corporate treasury functions, enabling CFOs and treasurers to shift from tactical, manual processes to strategic, data-driven decision-making. In an era of economic volatility, regulatory complexity, and global operations, technology addresses key challenges by enhancing efficiency, visibility, and risk mitigation.

When it comes to treasury processes that require technological focus, respondents to Asset Benchmark Research’s ( ABR ) annual Treasury Review 2025 ( TR 2025 ) shared that greater use of technology would be most useful in tackling frictions around payments/collection processes, receivables management, and liquidity management. This highlights the fact that more treasury management professionals are striving for automation and seeking to gain real-time data visibility of their current cash positions.

E-commerce transactions are growing in importance for enhancing treasury functions, with 71% of TR 2025 respondents recognizing the value of adapting their treasury operations to e-commerce transactions, a higher percentage compared to previous years, indicating that a growing proportion of business is now being conducted on online B2C or B2B platforms.

Incorporating AI functionality is also increasingly seen as a challenge for companies these days, with 55% of respondents indicating that it is the most difficult emerging technology to deploy, compared to 34% four years ago. Utilizing AI technology within treasury departments is developing rapidly, with treasury management professionals identifying multiple use cases, ranging from fraud detection, such as identifying anomalies in transactions, to cash flow forecasting, as well as analyzing historical data, market trends, and external factors.

Several years of discussions around central bank digital currencies ( CBDCs ) have left a lasting impact on treasury management professionals. Though the majority of respondents ( 60% ) still see no immediate interest in addressing the development of CBDCs, this has dropped significantly from 77% in 2022. Moreover, there has been an increase in the proportion of companies working closely with service providers to accept CBDCs in the near future, from 14% in 2022 to 25% currently.

Sustainability takes centre stage

In addition to digitalization efforts, CFOs and treasurers are being asked to take on a greater role in helping their respective organizations achieve sustainability targets. Whether it be via green deposits or sustainability-linked supply chain finance, treasury management professionals are working with their banking partners to provide them with the right advice on this.

However, challenges remain. Amid the uncertain and complex regulatory landscape, TR 2025 respondents are not exactly confident about whether they are applying the correct standards to various schemes. This is due to the limited availability of reliable sustainability data and metrics, while some respondents conceded that they didn’t have a clear strategy in place within their organizations to carry out such tasks.

These are just some of the observations from Asset Benchmark Research’s annual Treasury Review, which engaged over 600 treasury management professionals, including CFOs and treasurers, across the region in early 2025, regarding their views on the current trends shaping finance/treasury, as well as the service providers with which they work.

These findings represent just the tip of the iceberg of the wealth of insights uncovered by Asset Benchmark Research in TR 2025. Stay tuned for more in the coming weeks.

Be sure to check out our previous articles in our online TR 2025 series with part 1 here and part 2 here.