Exclusive Survey Report: Taking Treasury's Pulse

Business Finance's third annual treasury survey reveals that treasurers' top-of-mind issues include improving internal efficiency, leveraging Check 21 and preventing fraud.

Economic conditions may be easing, but treasurers' sights remain firmly fixed on achieving new efficiencies, according to a new survey of more than 400 corporate treasury and finance executives cosponsored by Business Finance and JPMorgan Chase. Respondents were asked to indicate how much, if any, impact the following events and trends have had on their treasury operation in the past 12 months: internal efficiency initiatives, mergers and acquisitions (M&A), globalization, financial industry consolidation, and e-commerce and the Internet. By a wide margin, internal efficiency initiatives were the most commonly cited force. Seventy-three percent of respondents stated that such programs have had either a very important or an extremely important impact on treasury, up from 70 percent in our 2004 survey. (See graph 1, below.)

Faced with this unrelenting drive to achieve more with less, treasuries are increasingly turning to new technologies. For example, the number of organizations with Check 21 initiatives in place or in the works is edging higher. The survey also reveals that treasurers are much better informed about the law than they were last year; terms like "check conversion" and "substitute check" are rapidly securing a place in treasury pros' vocabulary.

Part of the impetus for treasuries' ongoing quest for efficiency comes from today's tough regulatory environment. "As people are responding to the demands of Sarbanes-Oxley, they are focusing on internal efficiencies and controls," reports Michael Fossaceca, large corporate sales executive with JPMorgan Chase Treasury Services in New York City. Survey answers reveal treasurers' strategies for mitigating the risks they face. For example, many proactive cash managers are working with their banks to implement tools that will help them fight fraud. "Everything they offer -- we'll use it all," says Sharon Younger, treasurer with Meadow Homes, a homebuilder in Denver. "We have positive pay on our accounts, debit filters and debit blockers."