Turning Treasury into a Strategic Partner

Treasury is being pulled in two directions at once: outward toward an increasingly uncertain global economy, and inward toward the operational demands of scaling across markets and jurisdictions. Both were on the agenda at this year's ACTA Conference in Melbourne, where VantagePoint CEO Matt Benaron joined the panel on Digital Transformation and Innovation in Treasury, alongside Regina Aldridge-McNamara, Director of Treasury at AirTrunk, and Chin Shiang Tan of Kyriba, moderated by Kyriba's Aidan McDonald.

The expectation going in was a conversation about AI. The more honest one turned out to be about plumbing.

A community that still values coming together

The first observation had nothing to do with technology. ACTA was very well attended, and the Treasury community within it is notably tight-knit. For many of the treasurers in the room, the value of the event lay as much in convening as in any single session. "I wonder if that will become more and more important," Matt notes, "because everything feels a bit more AI, and people still want that human connection." As automation spreads across finance, the case for gathering in person may strengthen rather than fade.

Macroeconomic uncertainty remains the number one topic

For treasurers, the dominant theme is the external environment. Persistent global economic uncertainty and the current state of international affairs sit at the top of the agenda, because that is what makes a treasurer's job harder and shapes the risks they spend their days offsetting. Treasury is wired toward the academics of economics and the movements of the wider world, more aligned with banking than with operational process.

That orientation is a strength, but it carries a cost. Because treasury is so focused on what is happening externally, it is often less plugged into the mechanics of process efficiency than the rest of the finance function. The result is a community that, on the operational side, sits further behind than it could be, still wrestling with fundamentals such as API connectivity to banks. That lag reflects where the vendor landscape sits as much as the teams themselves.

The disconnect between treasury and the rest of finance

One of the key themes of the panel was the gap between treasury and the broader finance function. Treasury looks after short- to medium-term liquidity. Finance looks at the long-term trajectory of the organization. The two speak different languages, build different models and work on different time horizons, and that misalignment creates problems.

Closing that gap is one of the clearest opportunities in treasury today. The challenges treasurers face are, in practice, similar to those across the wider CFO function, including the same uncertainty about where to begin. "There were certainly nods around the cohesiveness to the rest of finance," Matt says. "And there were certainly nods around 'we don't know where to start.' That was reassuring."

A case study in evolving under pressure

The panel offered a vivid example of treasury evolving in real time. AirTrunk, which builds the data centers that AI companies increasingly depend on, has grown exceptionally fast and moved through ownership changes along the way. That kind of trajectory forces treasury to mature quickly, and the challenges that come with it are shared by many organizations on a rapid-growth path. For treasury teams facing the same journey, there is a great deal to learn from how a business at that velocity has adapted.

Where Kyriba changes the equation

For treasury teams still jumping between systems to assemble the basics, the operational burden is the problem to solve first. Kyriba is built to make that burden disappear, consolidating visibility into a single platform rather than the point solutions that handle cash, or hedging, or one narrow area in isolation. Teams can automate the operational layer and redirect their time toward the value they actually add.

The platform also packages capabilities that teams might otherwise be trying to build with AI, including cash flow forecasting driven by observed bank transactions, auto-categorization of flows, and forecasting that recognizes recurring patterns such as payroll. The platform becomes a foundation to develop from.

From using the tool to empowering the team

Technology alone does not deliver the outcome. Kyriba can be implemented well or poorly, and the easiest path, simply lifting today's processes into the platform, leaves most of the value on the table. The right implementation maximizes the value, helping clients rethink and transform as they implement rather than just migrate.

It's making the art of the possible more accessible

Matt says. "We're there to enable. They're there to empower their team, not just use the tool and get it to do what they do today."

This is where a broader CFO-advisory perspective sets VantagePoint apart from treasury-only specialists. Connecting what is implemented through Kyriba back to the wider finance function, and back to what the organization is ultimately trying to achieve, is often missed in software implementation generally, and especially in treasury.

The takeaway from Melbourne is a familiar one, and no less true for it. The tools to move treasury forward already exist. The opportunity lies in implementing them with intent, connecting treasury to the rest of finance, and building the operational foundation that lets a team trade firefighting for genuine strategic partnership.