With artificial intelligence transforming treasury, it is often assumed that junior staff will bear the brunt of role disruption and perhaps even replacement. But Tariq Kazi, group treasurer at Peabody Group and president of the ACT, challenges that assumption, arguing that senior decision-makers may also find their roles threatened by AI systems. For Kazi, the key for treasurers is to change with the times.
Treasurers who embrace AI could gain an advantage through more consistent, data-driven decision-making but only if they develop the expertise needed to understand and challenge the technology they use. Here, he outlines three priorities for treasury professionals seeking to adopt AI.
Key takeaways from EuroFinance International 2026
From September 16th to 18th, more than 2,600 treasury professionals gathered for the 35th annual EuroFinance International Treasury Management conference. The event included more than 180 speakers and over 50 case studies examining how the profession is responding to the rapidly evolving business environment.
The conference opened with keynote sessions from Justin Trudeau, Canada’s former prime minister, and Margrethe Vestager, former executive vice-president of the European Commission, who spoke about the geopolitical and macroeconomic trends shaping the world of treasury.
From the floors of Barcelona
A surprising share of treasury professionals rely on manual processes to manage group liquidity. In a session titled Commercial cards: enhancing payment rail interoperability, it emerged that more than one in five treasurers still use periodic manual transfers to pool their organisation’s cash. The reasons for reliance on such processes are many. Fragmented banking relationships, regulatory roadblocks in restricted markets and inertia around legacy ERP solutions are just a few of the barriers to implementing more efficient pooling structures.
Cross-border treasury
At EuroFinance International Treasury Management 2026, a session titled Cross-border connectivity in a fragmented global environment explored the challenges treasurers face when managing counterparty risk and cyber-security standards while working with local and emerging banking providers.
During the Q&A, an audience member asked the speakers to identify their three most immediate priorities, as well as the risks that were keeping them awake at night. The answer on priorities was straightforward: liquidity, liquidity and liquidity. The risks, however, proved far more complex.
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