Flight Plan to Profit: Navigating Beyond the Air Travel Boom

Airlines have made significant commercial progress since the pandemic, yet many still struggle with profitability. Standard Chartered explore the role of treasury in bringing this vital sector up to speed.

Welcome to the latest edition of Liquidity Link Live, your exclusive market analysis provided by Northern Trust Asset Management, one of the world’s largest cash managers. Tune in each month to discover the very latest insights on the UK, Eurozone and US markets. This edition was recorded on the 6th May 2025.

Steering a course around the complexities of treasury and cash flow in today’s dynamic global environment can feel like being in the wheelhouse without an up-to-date sea chart – and treasurers face the ongoing challenge of adapting to these conditions. Here, in the third in a series of TMI guest columns written by leading experts from ING Transaction Services, Tibor Bartels, Head Transaction Services ING Americas, combines perspectives from both sides of the Atlantic. He offers insights into the evolving demands on treasurers, the role of technology, and the critical need for banking partners to bridge regional and global operations.

With disruption showing no signs of slowing in 2025, TMI's Tom Alford speaks with Paul Stafford, Co-founder and CTO of Deaglo, about a risk modelling blind spot that financial managers may be overlooking, and could avoid. On Black Swan events, Stafford argues that while they can’t be predicted, they can be planned for. He challenges whether most risk managers, including treasurers, are truly equipped to respond when the unexpected hits.

In a world where payments are becoming increasingly rapid and interconnected, banks must adapt to meet the obstacles surrounding the need to improve existing systems and respond to the growing expectations of customers by offering an optimal user experience. Here, Société Générale’s Isabelle Poussigues, Global Head of Products and Network Management, Corporate and Investment Banking, and Frantz Teissèdre, Head of Public Affairs, Cash Clearing Global Transaction and Payment Services, discuss the best way forward for all stakeholders.

Following the recent row-back by certain US corporates on their DEI programmes, we explore the possible impact of curtailments through the eyes of those who have worked to establish them, and ask if it’s time for a rethink?

Why (and how) Treasurers Must Conquer their Digital Mountains Businesses are repeatedly told that data is the new gold/oil in terms of value to its owners. Yet sources of information can often be found scattered around the organisation as if it had little or no worth at all. In this exploration of data, we will seek to provide treasurers with a solid starting point for bringing structure to relative chaos.    

Collaboration between fintechs and banks, an increasing trend in recent years, is also necessary to deliver useful solutions to treasurers, not just e-commerce merchants.

Explorations of AI in treasury management yield many questions for the cautious and adventurous treasurer alike. Barclays’ Divya Kesavan, Head of Corporate Data Science & Insights, Global Transaction Banking, and Ope Olomo, Innovation Director, European Transaction Banking, present a balanced view of AI’s role in treasury and beyond.

As elections reshaped the global economy in 2024, corporate treasurers are finding themselves having to navigate shifting trade policies, currency volatility, regulatory changes, and technological disruption. Agility, resilience, and strategic foresight will be the key to success in 2025 and beyond.