239 respondents
December 2023
The December 2023 results reflect the need to protect liquidity and improve forecasting after global monetary tightening, while companies were also responding to the recovery of trade, tourism and regional investment. ASEAN’s FDI remained comparatively resilient even as global and Asian FDI conditions softened, while Singapore, Indonesia and Malaysia increasingly dominated regional inflows.
1. Top treasury priority: What are your organisation’s three most important treasury and cash-management priorities over the next 12 months?
Select up to three.
- Improving cash visibility across entities, accounts and countries (60%)
- Improving cash-flow forecasting accuracy (57%)
- Centralising or rationalising bank accounts and banking relationships
- Optimising surplus cash and short-term investments
- Strengthening payments security, fraud prevention and controls (33%)
- Reducing payment, reconciliation or manual-processing costs (43%)
- Improving collections and receivables visibility
- Supporting cross-border growth and multi-currency operations
- Managing FX exposure and execution (41%)
- Improving trade finance or supply-chain finance (35%)
- Implementing or upgrading treasury-management systems, APIs or ERP connectivity
- Using AI, automation or data analytics in treasury
- Raising debt, refinancing or improving working-capital funding
- Other
2. Greatest pain point: Which single issue causes the greatest operational or strategic difficulty for your treasury/finance team today?
Select one.
- Lack of real-time or timely group-wide cash visibility (25%)
- Inaccurate or unreliable cash-flow forecasts (24%)
- Excess idle cash or difficulty deploying surplus liquidity
- Fragmented bank accounts and banking platforms (25%)
- Manual payments, reconciliation and reporting processes (17%)
- Payment fraud, cyber risk or approval-control weaknesses
- Cross-border payments, trapped cash or regulatory restrictions
- FX volatility, hedging or execution (13%)
- Trade-finance speed, documentation or availability (10%)
- Lack of integration between banks, ERP and treasury systems (8%)
- Bank service quality or implementation delays
- Lack of internal treasury expertise or resources
- Other (3%)
3. Cash held: Approximately how much cash and near-cash liquidity does your organisation currently manage across all entities and currencies?
Please select a range. Responses will be reported only in aggregate and no individual company information will be disclosed.
- Less than US$5 million (20%)
- US$5 million to less than US$25 million (28%)
- US$25 million to less than US$100 million (27%)
- US$100 million to less than US$250 million (13%)
- US$250 million to less than US$500 million (6%)
- US$500 million to less than US$1 billion (4%)
- US$1 billion to less than US$5 billion (2%)
- US$5 billion or more
- Prefer not to say
Note: “Cash and near-cash liquidity” includes bank deposits, cash equivalents and short-term liquid investments available for treasury management. Please exclude restricted cash where possible.
4. Cash structure: How is this liquidity generally distributed?
Select the option that best describes your organisation.
- More than 75% is held in one home market (43%)
- 51–75% is held in one home market (24%)
- Broadly spread across several Asian markets (21%)
- Materially spread across Asia and markets outside Asia (7%)
- We do not have a clear consolidated view of group liquidity (5%)
- Prefer not to say
5. Forecasting and visibility: How would you assess your organisation’s current capability to forecast and view group cash positions?
| Capability | Limited/manual | Partly automated | Mostly automated | Real-time or near-real-time |
| Daily cash visibility | (34%) | (40%) | (21%) | (5%) |
| Short-term cash forecasting, up to 13 weeks | (42%) | (35%) | (18%) | (5%) |
| Forecasting beyond 13 weeks | ○ | ○ | ○ | ○ |
| Consolidation across currencies/entities | ○ | ○ | ○ | ○ |
6. Banking relationship model: Which statement best describes your current transaction-banking model?
- We use one primary bank for most domestic and cross-border cash-management needs (18%)
- We use a lead bank, supported by several specialist or local banks (38%)
- We use multiple banks with no clearly dominant lead bank (28%)
- Banking is primarily selected and managed independently by each country or subsidiary (11%)
- We are actively consolidating or reviewing our banking relationships (5%)
- We expect to add banks or specialist providers in the next 12 months
What would most influence a decision to appoint, retain or expand a cash-management bank relationship?
Select up to three.
- Quality of digital platform, APIs and ERP/TMS connectivity (33%)
- Domestic clearing and collections capability (55%)
- Cross-border payment reach and speed
- Liquidity-management and cash-pooling capability
- Security, fraud controls and resilience (39%)
- FX pricing and execution (41%)
- Trade-finance and supply-chain-finance capability (49%)
- Local market knowledge and regulatory support
- Relationship coverage and implementation capability
- Pricing and transparency of fees (44%)
- Credit appetite and wider financing relationship
- Data, analytics and reporting
7. Technology adoption: Which treasury and transaction-banking technologies does your organisation use today, and what are you likely to adopt within the next 24 months?
For each item, choose: “In use”, “Planned”, “No current plan”, or “Not familiar”.
| Technology | In use | Planned | No current plan | Not familiar |
| Treasury-management system | (25%) | (22%) | ||
| ERP-bank integration | (39%) | (30%) | ||
| Bank APIs | (16%) | (26%) | ||
| Host-to-host connectivity | ||||
| SWIFT connectivity | ||||
| Payment factories or shared-service centres | ||||
| Virtual accounts | (12%) | (20%) | ||
| Automated reconciliation tools | ||||
| Treasury data analytics or dashboards | ||||
| AI-enabled cash forecasting, reconciliation or exception management | (3%) | (13%) | ||
| FX trading platforms | ||||
| Electronic trade-finance platforms |
8. Trade finance and cross-border needs: For organisations with cross-border trade or operations, which areas need the greatest improvement from banks?
Select up to three; include “Not applicable” as an option.
- Faster, cheaper cross-border supplier payments (42%)
- Better visibility of inbound and outbound trade-related cash flows
- Documentary credits, collections, guarantees or standby instruments
- Digital trade documentation and reduced paper processes (44%)
- Supply-chain finance or supplier-payment programmes
- Receivables finance or distributor finance
- Import/export FX management and hedging (40%)
- Better support in restricted or hard-to-access currencies
- Regulatory, sanctions and compliance support (27%)
- Working-capital financing linked to trade flows (34%)
- Not applicable (16%)
9. Spending and switching intention: Over the next 12–24 months, what is your organisation most likely to do in relation to cash-management and treasury banking?
Select all that apply.
- Issue an RFP or review transaction-banking providers (24%)
- Consolidate bank accounts or reduce the number of banking relationships (25%)
- Add new domestic or cross-border banking partners
- Implement or upgrade a treasury-management system
- Improve ERP-to-bank connectivity or APIs (41%)
- Establish or expand a regional treasury centre/shared-service centre
- Introduce or expand cash pooling, sweeping or liquidity structures
- Strengthen payment-security controls and fraud prevention (30%)
- Review short-term investment or surplus-cash policy
- Expand FX hedging or electronic FX execution
- Digitise trade-finance processes (31%)
- No major change planned (16%)
- Not sure