As pressures to increase efficiency intensify, the Internet is proving a powerful ally for treasury departments. Survey results show how treasury professionals are making the Web work for them.

The Internet finally is having a noticeable effect on treasury operations and is helping managers achieve their top objective -- greater internal efficiencies. In a survey last summer that was jointly sponsored by Business Finance and J.P. Morgan Chase & Co., 79 percent of the more than 500 finance professionals who participated said the Internet has had an important impact on their treasury function over the past year.

Respondents ranked the value of the Internet's benefits for treasury, from those with the most to the least impact, as follows: better access to real-time bank information, the ability to spread access to bank data more broadly, self-service bank account inquiry capabilities, the opportunity to work remotely and the reduction in training needed for treasury staff.

The one force that has affected treasury over the past year more than the Internet is the drive to improve efficiency. (See What's Changing Treasuries? below.) However, the two trends are not necessarily distinct. The Internet presents new possibilities for internal efficiencies, and treasuries are going after them, reports Michael Fossaceca, senior vice president and large-corporate-sales executive at JPMorgan Treasury Services in New York City.

"It was hard in the PC environment to reach all treasury's constituencies and to get optimal data integration," Fossaceca says. "For example, people would fax wire requests to treasury, which would enter them manually on a workstation. Now the request can come in on a bank-ready template. All treasury needs to do is review and release it. The integration and automation can be spread through the organization."

Asked what effect they believe the Internet will ultimately have on borrowing, disbursements, foreign exchange (fx), collections, investments, hedging, capital markets and insurance, survey respondents said the greatest impact in all of these areas will be to improve efficiency. They picked efficiency ahead of product innovation, improved customer service and cost reduction, among other benefits.

"We've also found that operational efficiency is the top treasury priority," reports Anthony J. Carfang, partner and director with Treasury Strategies Inc. in Chicago. "Treasury staffs want things to run smoothly because they have so little time to fix things that don't."