Patrick Kunz, founder of Pecunia Treasury & Finance, shares his insights on treasury operations, payments, stablecoins, and the top priorities on treasurers’ wishlists.
Patrick, please tell us about yourself, your role, and your professional background.
I call myself the Treasury Guru because I love sharing my knowledge and passion for this field. I got into treasury because I wanted to work with real impact, real money (not just accounting numbers) and focus on looking ahead, not backwards. Early in my career, I realised I enjoyed driving transformations and improvements. After two permanent roles, I decided to start my own consulting firm: Pecunia Treasury & Finance. At just 30, it wasn’t easy. Your reputation depends on your last client or assignment; and first, you have to find them. But fast forward 10 years, I’ve grown from treasury consultant to interim head of treasury, even building treasuries from scratch. I still love treasury.
In the last 2 years, I decided to grow Pecunia bigger and build the Pecunia Interim Treasury network. We work with 350+ interim treasurers worldwide, each with their own expertise. We connect them to clients who need interim treasury support, consulting, mentoring, or TMS implementation management. For treasurers, by treasurers. I still do part-time consulting assignments myself. I love it too much.
I also enjoy speaking and moderating panels, webinars, and live sessions on treasury, so you might find me on stages at treasury conferences as well.
What are the biggest challenges for a treasurer today?
You might expect technology to top the list, but I’d say it’s workload. Treasury plays a crucial role in an organisation. Managing cash, risk, and debt means handling a significant part of the balance sheet and cash flow, sometimes including insurances and commodity risk. Yet treasury teams are small. Small doesn’t mean lean, because the workload often exceeds what the team can realistically handle. That means tough choices have to be made. Out of 10 priorities, maybe only 6 get proper attention.
Furthermore, Treasury never owns the data they use (and need) to do their work. So, when a CFF is inaccurate, it’s not Treasury’s fault but the responsibility of the data owners – often several internal stakeholders who need to be managed, such as AP, AR, Sales, Procurement, and FP&A. It’s not the easiest job.
Do you see instant payments as essential for treasury, or more of a nice to have?
No. Does that mean we don’t want instant payments? Also no. What we really need, in my opinion, is faster payments. Not necessarily 10-second transfers, but same-day settlements. There are still cases where payments sent from Australia arrive in the UK two days later. That’s not very 2026. Faster payments also improve cash flow forecasting, end-of-day cash planning, and investment accuracy, leading to better returns.
What is your opinion of stablecoins and their role in treasury? Do you think stablecoins will become mainstream for corporates?
Absolutely, they’ll be big in 2026 (says the guru 😉). Their value lies in enabling faster payments (see previous answer) and offering a cheaper alternative to some expensive international payment methods, which often rely on complex correspondent bank networks that add costs.
Another use case is unlocking trapped cash or enabling indirect FX trading. For example, USDARS liquidity in Argentina might be low, but ARSUSDC liquidity tends to be higher. By buying USDC, you can quickly transfer it to a US wallet and convert it into USD, effectively increasing USDARS liquidity through a detour. I’ve helped clients move trapped cash out of restricted countries this way.
If you could fix one structural issue in global treasury operations, what would it be?
Treasury doesn’t get the attention it deserves. We’re often a small team, but we have a big impact. Managing cash, debt, and financial risk. Too often, treasuries struggle due to understaffing or limited budgets. Think of treasury as the driver of a car, but other departments need to make sure the car is fuelled and the windshield is clear to see the road ahead.
In treasury operations, I’d say the biggest challenge is global cash visibility. It sounds simple, but connecting all banks to a Treasury Management System (TMS) or getting real-time/intraday cash visibility for a multinational is still difficult. Smaller banks especially struggle to keep up with technology and provide fast, standardised information to their clients.
What’s the one innovation that would genuinely make your daily work easier?
One global standard for payments and statements! Even ISO 20022 is fragmented, with each bank adding its own unique requirements.
Also, one API to rule them all; something that lets me connect to all my banks quickly and cheaply. We’re willing to pay for that. But one API per bank? That doesn’t save time; it adds complexity and costs.
Unfortunately, both these wishes feel like utopia.
A slightly more realistic wish: clean forecasting data 😊
About the author
Patrick Kunz is the founder of Pecunia Treasury & Finance and TreasuryMasterminds. He’s a corporate treasury professional focused on improving cash, risk, and funding for companies through practical execution. Started as an interim but is now a matchmaker with a strong network of 350+ interims. He’s also active in the treasury community through events, content, and partnerships.
About Pecunia Treasury & Finance
Pecunia Treasury & Finance is a treasury consultancy and interim network built by treasurers, for treasurers. We help companies fill temporary team gaps, optimise cash, risk, and funding through hands-on expertise, fast delivery, and fair pricing. Also, Tech and TMS implementations. Practical support, real people, real results, across Europe and beyond.
