Malaysia — 263 respondents
1. Top treasury and FX priorities
What are your organisation’s three most important treasury, funding or foreign-exchange priorities over the next 12 months?
Select up to three.
- Improving cash visibility and liquidity forecasting; (59%)
- Protecting earnings, margins or portfolio value against FX volatility; (60%)
- Improving FX hedge-policy design, governance or hedge effectiveness
- Reducing the cost of FX execution, hedging or bank spreads
- Managing interest-rate risk on debt, deposits or investments
- Optimising surplus cash, short-term investments or money-market returns (49%)
- Securing funding, refinancing or improving capital-structure resilience:
- Improving access to multicurrency accounts, cross-border liquidity or cash pooling
- Centralising treasury operations, bank relationships or dealing activity
- Improving real-time treasury data, dashboards and risk reporting
- Integrating ERP, TMS, investment systems or bank platforms through APIs (52%)
- Automating exposure capture, confirmation, settlement or reconciliation
- Managing commodity-price risk alongside FX and interest-rate exposures
- Strengthening fraud, counterparty, cyber and operational-risk controls
- Using AI, advanced analytics or scenario modelling in treasury (35%)
- Other
2. Greatest treasury or FX challenge
Which single issue currently creates the greatest strategic or operational challenge for your treasury, finance or investment team?
Select one.
- Inaccurate cash-flow, liquidity or funding forecasts (16%)
- Limited visibility of group-wide currency exposures (21%)
- FX volatility and uncertainty over when or how much to hedge (20%)
- Inadequate hedge policy, governance, accounting treatment or board approval
- High FX spreads, hedging costs or insufficient pricing transparency (14%)
- Interest-rate volatility or refinancing risk (10%)
- Limited access to credit, derivatives, collateral or hedging facilities
- Fragmented bank portals, platforms and dealing channels
- Manual processes in exposure capture, confirmation, settlement or reporting
- Difficulty integrating bank systems with ERP, TMS or investment platforms (21%)
- Counterparty, settlement, fraud or cyber risk
- Shortage of treasury expertise, systems capacity or internal resources (12%)
- Other (7%)
3. FX exposure scale
Approximately what is your organisation’s annual gross foreign-currency exposure from revenues, costs, debt, investments, dividends, intercompany flows or other financial obligations?
Please select a range. Responses will be reported only in aggregate and will not be linked to an individual organisation.
- Less than US$1 million (5%)
- US$1 million to less than US$5 million (13%)
- US$5 million to less than US$25 million (24%)
- US$25 million to less than US$100 million (31%)
- US$100 million to less than US$250 million (17%)
- US$250 million to less than US$500 million (7%)
- US$500 million to less than US$1 billion (3%)
- US$1 billion to less than US$5 billion
- US$5 billion or more
- We do not currently quantify exposure centrally
- Prefer not to say
Note: “Gross foreign-currency exposure” means the aggregate, pre-hedging value of material currency exposures over a 12-month period. It may include forecast transaction exposures, recognised balance-sheet exposure, foreign-currency debt, portfolio holdings, investment commitments and intercompany positions.
4. Exposure profile and hedging coverage
Which of the following are your organisation’s most material foreign-exchange exposures?
Select up to three.
- Export or foreign-currency sales receivables (61%)
- Imported goods, raw materials or supplier payables (52%)
- Foreign-currency borrowing or lease obligations (28%)
- Offshore investments, funds or securities holdings
- Foreign-currency operating costs, payroll or overseas subsidiaries
- Intercompany loans, dividends, royalties or management fees (30%)
- Foreign-currency acquisition, capital-expenditure or project commitments (17%)
- Commodity-linked revenues or costs with an FX component
- Overseas investor distributions, fund subscriptions or redemptions
- We have limited or no material FX exposure
- Other
What proportion of material forecast FX exposure is normally hedged under your policy or current practice?
Select one.
- No formal hedging (10%)
- Less than 25% (19%)
- 25% to less than 50% (31%)
- 50% to less than 75% (25%)
- 75% to 100% (12%)
- Coverage varies substantially by currency, business unit or market condition (3%)
- Not applicable or prefer not to say
5. Hedging instruments and approach
Which FX and interest-rate risk-management tools does your organisation currently use, and which do you expect to use or expand during the next 24 months?
For each item, select “Currently use”, “Plan to use/expand”, “Aware but no current plan” or “Not familiar”.
- Spot FX transactions — Currently use (84%); Plan to use/expand (5%)
- FX forwards — Currently use (63%); Plan to use/expand (23%)
- FX swaps — Currently use (29%); Plan to use/expand (24%)
- Non-deliverable forwards
- FX options or option structures — Currently use (23%); Plan to use/expand (24%)
- Cross-currency swaps
- Interest-rate swaps, caps or collars
- Natural hedging through matching revenues, costs, debt or assets — Currently use (55%); Plan to use/expand (25%)
- Multicurrency accounts and internal netting — Currently use (40%); Plan to use/expand (32%)
- Centralised dealing desk or in-house bank
- Electronic FX trading platform — Currently use (48%); Plan to use/expand (32%)
- Algorithmic execution or execution analytics
- External hedge advisory, outsourced dealing or overlay management
- Commodity hedging integrated with FX management
- AI or analytics-assisted exposure forecasting and hedging — Currently use (21%); Plan to use/expand (35%)
6. Bank relationship model and selection criteria
Which statement best describes your organisation’s current treasury and FX banking model?
Select one.
- One primary bank handles most liquidity, funding and FX requirements (12%)
- We use a lead treasury bank supported by specialist local, regional or global banks (49%)
- We use multiple banks, with no clearly dominant treasury or FX provider (19%)
- Individual countries, subsidiaries, portfolio managers or business units select banks independently (6%)
- We are actively consolidating, reviewing or re-tendering treasury and FX banking relationships (14%)
- We expect to add banks, non-bank liquidity providers, fintechs or specialist advisers in the next 12 months
What would most influence a decision to appoint, retain or expand a treasury or FX bank relationship?
Select up to three.
- Competitive FX pricing, spreads, transparency and execution quality (64%)
- Credit appetite, derivative limits, collateral terms or funding capacity
- Local-currency, cross-border and emerging-market FX capability (47%)
- Global market access, liquidity and product breadth
- Treasury advisory, market intelligence and hedge-policy support (47%)
- Digital dealing platform, APIs and integration with ERP/TMS/investment systems (63%)
- Risk analytics, exposure dashboards, scenario modelling and reporting (47%)
- Cash management, liquidity, deposits and short-term investment capability (42%)
- Interest-rate, commodity and cross-asset hedging capability
- Operational service, implementation quality and 24-hour support
- Counterparty strength, credit quality, balance sheet and resilience (36%)
- Regulatory, hedge-accounting, documentation and compliance expertise
- Custody, collateral management, financing or securities-services capability
- Sustainability-linked treasury, investment or risk-management solutions
7. Technology, data and execution maturity
How would you assess your organisation’s current treasury and FX technology capability?
| Capability | Largely manual | Partly automated | Mostly automated | Integrated / real-time |
| Consolidation of group cash, debt, investments and liquidity positions | ○ | ○ | ○ | ○ |
| Identification and aggregation of FX exposures | 14% | 39% | 35% | 12% |
| Forecasting of cash flows, currency exposures and hedge requirements | ○ | ○ | ○ | ○ |
| Connectivity between ERP/TMS/investment systems and bank platforms | ○ | ○ | ○ | ○ |
| FX execution, confirmation, settlement and reconciliation | 13% | 36% | 38% | 13% |
| Management reporting, scenario analysis and hedge-performance measurement | ○ | ○ | ○ | ○ |
This lets the bank identify whether a client needs foundational connectivity, workflow automation, integrated FX execution, data/analytics or a more advanced TMS and risk-management proposition.
8. Risk outlook and unmet bank needs
Which risks or treasury needs would you most like a bank, adviser or technology provider to help your organisation address over the next 12–24 months?
Select up to three.
- Currency volatility and protection of operating margins or portfolio values (55%)
- Interest-rate volatility and debt-service risk (32%)
- Liquidity stress testing, contingency funding and cash buffers
- Cross-border cash concentration, pooling or intercompany funding (31%)
- FX exposure forecasting, hedge-policy design or board reporting (42%)
- Lower-cost or more transparent FX execution (41%)
- Access to derivatives, credit lines, collateral or structured hedging
- Settlement, counterparty, fraud or cyber-risk controls
- Hedging of restricted, illiquid or emerging-market currencies
- Commodity, energy or freight-price hedging
- Hedge accounting, documentation and regulatory support (24%)
- Treasury technology, APIs, real-time data or AI-enabled analytics (42%)
- Short-term investment, yield enhancement or money-market solutions
- Portfolio currency overlay, asset-liability management or investment-liquidity support
- No major unmet need
- Other
9. Planned actions and provider-switching intent
Over the next 12–24 months, what actions is your organisation most likely to take in treasury, funding or FX risk management?
Select all that apply.
- Increase use of forwards, swaps, options or other derivatives
- Increase use of natural hedging, netting or multicurrency structures
- Expand interest-rate hedging
- Improve cash-flow, liquidity or FX-exposure forecasting
- Implement or upgrade a treasury-management system (36%)
- Connect ERP, TMS or investment systems to banks through APIs or host-to-host links (53%)
- Centralise treasury operations, dealing, funding or bank relationships (25%)
- Review or issue an RFP for treasury, FX or markets banks (29%)
- Add specialist FX providers, fintechs, electronic platforms or advisers
- Consolidate the number of treasury or FX banking relationships
- Expand FX execution through electronic platforms (34%)
- Establish or expand an in-house bank, payment factory or regional treasury centre (25%)
- Introduce AI, data analytics or automated risk-monitoring tools (36%)
- Make no major change (7%)
- Not sure