Change on the horizon: The impact of cloud computing on treasury and transaction banking

Cloud services is not just hype, it is an emerging model for online delivery of business and consumer offerings. For now, cloud services have had traction with consumers and some more generic business processes such as customer relations management and e-mail, but cloud services can be seen as a truly transformative concept which banks and technology vendors must understand and embrace. Looking specifically at the treasury and transaction services that banks provide to their corporate clients, there are opportunities to use cloud infrastructure to build up new offerings. Future treasury services will be delivered as ‘business as a service’, providing a suite of packaged services targeted to specific industries or financial processes. Examples of business as a service solutions that are in the market now provide guidance to banks who see a future in this approach to the market. Although the title of this paper promises a discussion of cloud services, there are also changes in corporate treasury and the technology envir­onment which banks are selling into. Companies are moving ahead with new technology investments. Software as a service has lowered the bar for adoption and is increasing the breadth of services that treasurers have available to them. Banks have an opportunity to develop new solutions to meet those needs. This paper looks at how the status quo has shifted irrevocably, why cloud is important, how treasurers’ roles and requirements have changed, how financial technology providers are evolving and, finally, what banks can do now to make the transition to business as a service.