Topic

Liquidity update – takeaways from the CeFPro Treasury & ALM Congress

by Fernando Vergara | on 8 April 2022

SmartStream recently attended the CeFPro Treasury & ALM Congress in New York City, our team was pleased to connect with colleagues across the industry to discuss some of the latest developments and challenges. There were a host of interesting panels and discussions held, including our subject matter expert Peter Dehaan, who shared his insights on intraday liquidity and regulatory pressures.

Data, operational gaps, inflation, and the continued impact of Covid-19 were all common themes throughout the event. Another point of interest was around the technology challenges currently being faced by Treasury & ALM departments in banks. Some of which included longer times to support BAU systems, manual inefficiencies which lead to errors and increased risk, and the inability to generate liquidity position reports in a timely manner.

During Peter’s session, he polled the audience to understand what business priorities were driving their internal strategies. One of the questions asked was ‘As managers of liquidity, what was your top concern for 2022?’ – the top answers given were ‘manual processes’, ‘data transparency’, and ‘moving onto the cloud’. He then dug into the cloud question more, asking ‘How comfortable is your firm with using cloud-based technologies?’ – the top answer received was ‘a little’, followed by ‘more than it would have been three years ago’.

With the increasing amount of new market participants entering the space and with cloud native solutions fighting for market share, traditional banks need to fast track their digital strategies to remain both competitive and relevant to their customers. It was alarming to see how many banks have been slow to adopt new technologies.

It’s clear to see that operational and manual processes are still a grave concern for many – from the biggest GCIB’s to local community banks. Now is the time to invest in new technologies which can support the removal of manual processes and bring real-time processing to the forefront.

SmartStream’s team of Cash & Liquidity experts are committed to helping financial institutions optimise their operational processes.