The Treasury Insider - Treasury Technology - Taking the Right Path

							The Treasury Insider - Treasury
Technology - Taking the Right Path
03 Nov 2009 GTNEWS.COM

As the role of the treasury department has grown in
scale, it can be tricky to manage the different systems
required to run an efficient department.

I am interested in technology and I want to make the
treasury department work as efficiently and seamlessly as
possible. But is it just me, or has treasury technology got
more complicated? We used to use spreadsheets for
recording our deals, currency exposures, etc, and then we bought a treasury management system
(TMS). Our plan here was to capture all our treasury activities in one place. By so doing we would
also be able to track our banks and make payments. The icing on the cake was that, as everyone
in the treasury department would be using the one system, we would satisfy our internal and
external audit requirements and the other regulatory directives that we are forced to follow.

This was all well and good, but then we decided to extend our use of technology to include
confirmation matching, risk management and electronic dealing. Now we had to integrate three or
more systems and vendors and this is where the problems started. We now have four different
technology suppliers on whom we are completely dependent if things go wrong. But when things
do go wrong (and they sometimes do), which vendor do we call? Who will take responsibility for
fixing the interface or whatever goes wrong - the issue being that it is sometimes difficult to
pinpoint where the problem lies. This issue is two-fold:

 1.     Although I am interested in technology, I do not have the time or resources to keep
      myself up to date with the fast moving pace of change in this area.
 2.      The technology providers don’t always work with each other effectively to make it
      easy for us. It may be unrealistic, but when it comes down to it, I just want the systems
      to work on time, all the time.
Maybe then I need to focus on paying a little extra for better advice and support - and this is
exactly what I am now doing. The adage that a little knowledge is a dangerous thing is true in my
case. I have concluded that, while technology is crucial in improving the way I run my treasury
department, there are more knowledgeable people out there who can advise what will work better
for me. There are too many choices available and it is often a struggle to work out what does what
and what is best for me.

We are about to investigate corporate access to SWIFT and already the questions are being
raised: Do we use SCORE? Do we need to involve a service bureau? What is a service bureau? It
is definitely time to admit defeat and call in my IT department. The lesson I have learned is that I
should still take an interest in technology, if only simply to identify a product that may help us, but
then leave it to the experts to investigate and decide if it really is worth pursuing.