Automation & real-time treasury in financial institutions, London in review
Where in the world was nanopay this week?
As a global company, we attend events around the world. This past week Laurence Cooke, CEO, and Arnav Khurana, Director, Client Solutions & Business Development, were in London attending the Automation in real-time treasury in financial institutions. In this short blog, Arnav shares his insights and learnings from the event.
Q: How did this event compare to similar conferences you’ve attended?
Arnav: This was a much smaller event than I am used to. A lot of very senior treasurers, mostly from big banks with offices in the UK. It was a nice intimate setting with some terrific keynote speakers and also a nice change from the standard, large event with hundreds of people.
Q: What were your highlights from the event?
Arnav: Cynthia Liu, Director of Quantitative Analysis & Model Review, at Scotiabank’s Treasury Group was a particularly insightful speaker. Not only was she obviously smart, but I also think she was brave in admitting that innovation can be quite difficult in treasury because it can be so difficult to measure the return on an investment in technology. While most investments at the bank are rightfully based on P&L (profit and loss statements), it can be a real challenge to show quantifiable returns when looking to upgrade products in treasury.
Q: Any surprises at the event?
Arnav: There weren’t any major industry announcements made at the event, so my biggest surprise was probably when Laurence, our CEO, had to leave the event early, so he left the cash and liquidity management product demo up to me. I then found out that instead of 10 minutes to present, I only had 5 minutes to go through the entire thing. It went really well though and we gained a lot of traction with the audience!
Q: What generated the most buzz around nanopay and its products?
Arnav: The companies were particularly fond of the dashboard design. The dashboard is quite beautiful in its simplicity, as it allows for an intuitive user experience while also including so many capabilities: data analytics, inter-company currency exposure, total balance and recent transactions. Attendees were quite impressed.
Q: What were your top industry learnings or insights?
Arnav: Even though banks are exploring new technology for treasury management, it is still a very slow process. Education is key though. Treasurers are quite excited about technological developments that can help both their day-to-day operations, but also their long-term strategic capabilities. However, traditionally, treasurers are risk averse, so transitioning to something brand new takes time.
