Four out of five corporate treasury functions expect to be strongly involved in the strategic decision-making on digital business transformation by 2025, according to a survey from Nordea.

Still, executive business leaders do not share this expectation, as they see the treasury function as just another specialist unit. The Treasury 2025 Report has stressed that 76% of the treasury functions surveyed expect to be ‘moderately’ or ‘highly’ involved as strategic partners to management by 2025 – whereas just over one in five business area leaders see the treasury in the same way.

Treasury respondents in Nordea’s survey said that they expect to see increased automation in everything that they do. The study suggests that automation offers treasury the chance to free up more time to focus on innovation and digitalisation projects, develop new relationships and play a bigger part in the wider business.

With increasing automation within the treasury, the skills required within the unit will change. Many of these new skills will focus on how treasuries draw value from new data streams. Research shows that the treasury is still focused on having the skills needed to do the job as it is today rather than looking ahead to build the expertise needed to redefine its role.

Nordea’s Treasury 2025 Report is a comprehensive study and includes some 300 executive respondents from treasury and business functions in Nordic and international corporates.