Treasury Payments in 2025: Principles for Modern Resilience

Vendors now expect instant payments, and employees rely on timely payments and reimbursements, creating a dynamic and demanding environment for treasury operations. Concurrently, regulatory landscapes are in a constant state of flux, necessitating continuous adaptation. In this complex scenario, Patric Leone, Product Owner, Connectivity, at Fides Treasury Services, outlines seven crucial payment principles that treasurers must embrace to effectively meet contemporary treasury demands. By applying these principles, treasurers can free up valuable resources and focus their strategic attention on what truly matters: ensuring the ongoing health, stability, and future prosperity of the business.

Keeping Up with Modern Treasury Trends

The act of making a payment, once considered a straightforward administrative task, has evolved into a daily exercise demanding meticulous attention to compliance, leveraging advanced technology, and implementing robust risk management strategies. It has become unequivocally vital for treasurers to establish and maintain the correct policies, streamline processes, put in place comprehensive safeguards, and forge strong partnerships with appropriate technology providers. This proactive approach ensures that treasury functions remain agile and secure in an ever-changing financial ecosystem.

The widespread adoption of ISO 20022, which standardizes financial messaging, alongside the acceleration of real-time payment systems, the introduction of purpose codes for enhanced transparency, the emergence of AI-driven automation, and sophisticated digital identity frameworks, are collectively compelling even the most experienced treasury professionals to significantly adapt their operational methodologies. These innovations, while promising greater efficiency and accuracy, also introduce new layers of complexity that require careful navigation.

Furthermore, the global financial landscape is witnessing considerable regulatory shifts designed to bolster security and compliance. Initiatives like Verification of Payee (VoP) in Europe are poised to play a critical role in mitigating payment fraud and minimizing errors, thereby safeguarding financial transactions. Simultaneously, the mandatory implementation of structured address data for international payments represents a significant step towards enhancing anti-money laundering (AML) protocols and strengthening sanctions screening processes. These changes collectively aim to create a more secure and transparent global payment infrastructure.

While the opportunities for innovation within treasury are abundant and exciting, there is also a substantial learning curve associated with these advancements. It is crucial, however, to recognize that in the enthusiastic pursuit of progress and cutting-edge solutions, fundamental safeguards — such as secure connectivity channels and the integrity of core processes — are sometimes inadvertently overlooked or deprioritized. A balanced approach is essential to ensure that innovation does not compromise foundational security.

Seven Treasury Payments Principles

To simplify the intricate payment process and establish a robust framework that underpins security, ensures compliance, and facilitates effective risk management, treasurers can strategically apply the following seven guiding principles:

1. Balance Self-Service and Centralized Control
For organizations of all sizes, from agile small and medium-sized enterprises to sprawling multinational corporations, flexible self-service sign-off frameworks offer considerable value by empowering teams and accelerating workflows. However, this autonomy must be carefully balanced with strategic oversight. Implementing a systemwide maximum payout limit, for instance, is a crucial control mechanism. This ensures that even when routine payments are streamlined through self-service, a central authority maintains strategic governance across diverse teams, geographical locations, and various business units, preventing potential misuse or excessive exposure. This dual approach fosters efficiency without sacrificing control, establishing clear boundaries for operational autonomy.
2. Implement Role-Based Access Controls (RBAC)
Irrespective of whether connections to banks and payment processing occur via an Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system, a Treasury Management System (TMS), a dedicated bank portal, or a specialized connectivity provider such as Fides, the rigorous implementation of role-based permissions is paramount for maintaining compliance and bolstering security. RBAC ensures that access to critical functions and sensitive data is strictly governed by an individual's specific role and responsibilities. This means, for example, that senior staff can be assigned permissions for over-limit approvals, while technical experts are solely responsible for configuring BIC (Bank Identifier Code) and Swift settings. Such granular control minimizes the risk of unauthorized actions and data breaches.
3. Regularly Revalidate Access Rights
In today's dynamic global business environment, characterized by frequently evolving organizational structures and personnel changes, treasury teams require flexible access models to remain efficient. However, this flexibility also necessitates a heightened vigilance regarding access rights. It is imperative to regularly review and update granular user roles — such as those designated as administrators, signers for account setup, or approval-only profiles — that are integral to your RBAC strategy. Neglecting this crucial step can lead to 'permission creep,' where individuals retain access rights no longer relevant to their roles, thereby increasing security vulnerabilities and complicating audit trails. Regular revalidation ensures that access remains current, appropriate, and secure.
4. Keep on Top of Sanctions Screening
The landscape of international sanctions lists is in a constant state of flux, a reality particularly pronounced in the current volatile geopolitical climate. To effectively mitigate risk and ensure unwavering compliance with global regulations, it is an absolute necessity that every single payment, without exception, undergoes thorough and real-time sanctions screening. Relying on outdated lists or infrequent checks exposes the organization to severe legal, financial, and reputational repercussions. Automated and continuously updated screening mechanisms are essential tools for identifying and preventing transactions with sanctioned entities, thereby protecting the business from significant regulatory penalties and reputational damage.
5. Use Allow Lists
Implementing "allow lists" for payment recipients is a highly effective security measure designed to ensure that funds are disbursed only to trusted and pre-approved beneficiaries. This proactive approach significantly reduces the potential for erroneous payments or fraudulent activities. To further enhance security and mitigate risk, the management of these allow lists should ideally be governed by the "four-eyes principle." This principle mandates that at least two individuals are required to approve the addition or modification of an account on the list. This critical control can be seamlessly integrated within a sophisticated treasury aggregation platform or rigorously coded into an ERP or TMS, creating a robust defense against internal and external threats.
6. Don’t Rely on AI Alone
The financial technology market is currently vibrant with the emergence of numerous new AI-based fraud prevention tools, lauded for their potential to streamline workflows and enhance detection capabilities. While these technologies undeniably hold significant promise in analyzing vast datasets and identifying suspicious patterns with remarkable speed, it is critical to acknowledge that we have not yet reached a point where artificial intelligence can, or indeed should, operate without human oversight. Human intelligence remains indispensable for interpreting nuanced situations, making complex ethical judgments, and handling exceptions that AI algorithms might misinterpret. Therefore, AI should be viewed as a powerful assistant, augmenting human capabilities rather than completely replacing them in critical fraud prevention efforts.
7. Partner with a Connectivity Provider
In the modern treasury landscape, secure, intelligent, and scalable connectivity is far more than a mere technical requirement; it serves as the foundational pillar upon which all other treasury operations are built. Consequently, organizations should actively seek out connectivity providers with extensive experience across a multitude of connectivity channels and a proven track record of successful implementations. Essential attributes to look for include demonstrable reliability, comprehensive auditability, and consistently high customer service ratings. Beyond technical prowess, an ideal connectivity partner should function as an expert advisor, offering invaluable guidance on bank relationships, optimizing the use of tools like ERPs and TMSs, and staying abreast of the latest treasury trends. This strategic partnership enables treasurers to effectively adapt to current changes and confidently navigate future challenges, building a truly resilient treasury function.

Building a Resilient Treasury

The inherent strength of a treasury function lies in its resilience: its capacity to robustly protect the business against a diverse array of financial and operational risks, while simultaneously enabling and fostering sustainable growth. Treasury leaders today are undoubtedly facing unprecedented levels of pressure, driven by rapid technological advancements, evolving regulatory demands, and volatile global markets. However, this heightened pressure also translates into expanded opportunities to demonstrate strategic value and exert significant positive influence. By diligently adhering to these key principles – meticulously designed to ensure secure and compliant payment processes – and by proactively forging partnerships with trusted experts who can assist in implementing the right frameworks and processes, treasurers are not merely reacting to change. Instead, they are actively constructing a robust platform for enduring success, safeguarding their organizations' financial integrity and paving the way for future prosperity.