Treasury Technology Debt: The Hidden Costs of Yesterday's Decisions

*]:pointer-events-auto R6Vx5W_threadScrollVars scroll-mb-[calc(var(--scroll-root-safe-area-inset-bottom,0px)+var(--thread-response-height))] scroll-mt-[calc(var(--header-height)+min(200px,max(70px,20svh)))]" dir="auto" data-turn-id= "request-6a5f9aa2-1c18-83ea-b6a5-b24b7ec14493-5" data-turn-id-container= "request-6a5f9aa2-1c18-83ea-b6a5-b24b7ec14493-5" data-testid= "conversation-turn-48" data-turn="assistant"> In this episode, Paul Galloway and Craig Jeffery discuss treasury technology debt, the hidden burden created when legacy systems and infrastructure continue to work but increasingly limit flexibility, security, and future capabilities. They explain how treasury teams can assess technology and identify where outdated tools create the most drag, and how to prioritize upgrades without trying to replace everything at once. The discussion also covers ISO 20022, APIs, AI, cloud-native architecture, interoperability, and why treasury should regularly review its technology stack to maintain a practical runway for future change. 2026 Treasury Technology Analyst Report The Hidden Costs of Complexity in Treasury Operations (2026) TMS and TRMS: Choosing the Right Treasury System in 2026 (2026) Treasury Assessments: What to Review and How Often (2026) Timestamps: 00:00 Introduction 01:16 What is treasury technology debt? 02:45 Common forms of technology debt 04:28 How outdated technology impacts treasury 06:44 Identifying and prioritizing technology debt 10:25 Payment standards and ISO 20022 11:31 Reducing technology debt strategically 14:15 APIs, interoperability, and modernization 15:40 Building a sustainable technology roadmap 16:31 Final thoughts 16:48 Outro ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ABOUT STRATEGIC TREASURER ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Strategic Treasurer is recognized as a top tier consulting firm in the area of treasury and risk management. Corporate clients, banks, and technology vendors all rely on their industry leading advisory services that are backed by a deep awareness of current needs, practices, and budgeting priorities of treasury professionals through Strategic Treasurer's annual industry surveys and decades of treasury experience. Strategic Treasurer utilizes a senior consultant model where every project is managed by senior consultants with actual practitioner experience in corporate and/or banking roles. Download The Strategic Treasurer: A Partnership for Corporate Growth by Craig A. Jeffery in Kindle, or hardcover. As an Amazon Associate, we earn from qualifying purchases. Visit us today at StrategicTreasurer.com. Or join in the discussion at one of our leading LinkedIn groups.

In this episode, Craig Jeffery and Karthik Manimozhi of Eftsure discuss how AI is reshaping payment fraud and the controls treasury teams need to protect payment integrity without sacrificing efficiency. They examine the three core questions of how to ensure payments go to the right payee, at the right amount, and at the right time, along with the need for a control tower spanning AP, treasury, banks, and ERPs and payment rails. The conversation also explores agent oversight, AI-native workflows, continuous auditing, and opportunities to unlock working capital. Payment Security Report: https://strategictreasurer.com/payment-security-report/ Scammer's Playbook: How AP and Finance Teams Are Losing Money (2026): https://strategictreasurer.com/webinar-ai-powered-attacks-on-treasury/ Payment Scamming: Exploitation and Defense (Eftsure) (2026): https://strategictreasurer.com/400-payment-scamming-exploitation-and-defense/ Cybercrime Prevention: The Where and Why of Scams (Eftsure) (2026): https://strategictreasurer.com/410-cybercrime-prevention/ Global companies lost 7.7% of annual revenue to fraud ($534B in 2024); 9.8% for US enterprises. Source: TransUnion, H2 2025 Global Fraud Report: https://newsroom.transunion.com/h2-2025-global-fraud-report/ Financial institutions incur an average total cost of $5+ for every $1 of fraud loss. Source: LexisNexis, True Cost of Fraud study: https://chainstoreage.com/study-total-cost-fraud-now-exceeds-5-every-1-direct-loss JP Morgan Working Capital Index rose from 106.6 (2018) to 116, with roughly $701B to $761B unlockable on a 1% move. Source: J.P. Morgan Working Capital Index: https://www.jpmorgan.com/content/dam/jpmorgan/images/payments/working-capital-index/increasing-efficiency-working-capital-index-2024-ada.pdf Occupational fraud costs the typical organisation about 5% of revenue, averaging roughly $1.7M per case. Source: ACFE, Occupational Fraud 2024: A Report to the Nations: https://www.acfe.com/-/media/files/acfe/pdfs/rttn/2024/2024-report-to-the-nations.pdf On average, enterprises run more than 300 distinct SaaS platforms. Source: Productiv: https://productiv.com/blog/saas-statistics-that-every-it-manager-should-see/ Eftsure: https://www.eftsure.com Timestamps: 00:00 Introduction 00:39 Fraud, errors, and the cost of trust 04:20 Right payee, amount, and timing 06:20 AI, working capital, and liquidity 09:05 About Eftsure and Karthik Manimozhi 11:42 Payment controls across the technology stack 13:47 AI agents and autonomous oversight 17:04 Building a payment control tower 22:06 Designing AI-native finance workflows 27:18 Practical steps for finance leaders 31:28 Final thoughts 31:46 Outro ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ABOUT STRATEGIC TREASURER ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Download The Strategic Treasurer: A Partnership for Corporate Growth by Craig A. Jeffery in Kindle, or hardcover: https://amzn.to/4uqwFQq As an Amazon Associate, we earn from qualifying purchases. Strategic Treasurer is recognized as a top tier consulting firm in the area of treasury and risk management. Corporate clients, banks, and technology vendors all rely on their industry leading advisory services that are backed by a deep awareness of current needs, practices, and budgeting priorities of treasury professionals through Strategic Treasurer's annual industry surveys and decades of treasury experience. Strategic Treasurer utilizes a senior consultant model where every project is managed by senior consultants with actual practitioner experience in corporate and/or banking roles. Visit us today at http://strategictreasurer.com. Or join in the discussion at one of our leading LinkedIn groups: http://strategictreasurer.com/linkedin/

In this episode, Craig Jeffery and Arjun Krishnan discuss five key limitations of enterprise AI in treasury: data quality, pattern-based reasoning without true understanding, difficulty handling novel situations, variable outputs, and limited explainability. They also explore the opportunities and solutions behind these constraints, including AI-assisted data cleanup, anomaly detection, stronger controls, human oversight, and safer agent-based system design. Enterprise AI for Treasury: A Guide to Agentic Implementation: https://amzn.to/4vTH8Fv AI: The Automation Spectrum and Examples in Treasury (Valorean Technologies) (2026): https://strategictreasurer.com/420-ai-automation-spectrum-and-examples-in-treasury/ Valorean Technologies: https://valorean.ai/ Timestamps: 00:00 Introduction 00:34 AI limitations and opportunities 02:05 Data quality shapes AI quality 05:35 AI correlates but does not understand 09:29 Arjun Krishnan's background 10:18 AI and genuinely novel situations 12:37 Why AI outputs can vary 16:29 Explainability and audit trails 19:14 The most critical limitations 20:32 Final thoughts and book 20:54 Outro ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ABOUT STRATEGIC TREASURER ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Download The Strategic Treasurer: A Partnership for Corporate Growth by Craig A. Jeffery in Kindle, or hardcover: https://amzn.to/4uqwFQq As an Amazon Associate, we earn from qualifying purchases. Strategic Treasurer is recognized as a top tier consulting firm in the area of treasury and risk management. Corporate clients, banks, and technology vendors all rely on their industry leading advisory services that are backed by a deep awareness of current needs, practices, and budgeting priorities of treasury professionals through Strategic Treasurer's annual industry surveys and decades of treasury experience. Strategic Treasurer utilizes a senior consultant model where every project is managed by senior consultants with actual practitioner experience in corporate and/or banking roles. Visit us today at http://strategictreasurer.com. Or join in the discussion at one of our leading LinkedIn groups: http://strategictreasurer.com/linkedin/

In this episode, Lee Patton and Craig Jeffery discuss what corporate treasury teams must do to prepare for the November 2026 ISO 20022 structured address requirements. They discuss why the rules can affect organizations even when they do not originate ISO 20022 files, how incomplete payment inventories and address data can cause rejections, and why treasury, AP, IT, banks, and service providers must coordinate to validate payment workflows and data readiness. ISO 20022 Readiness Webinar: https://strategictreasurer.com/webinar-iso-20022-readiness/ Swift ISO 20022 Address Requirements: https://www.swift.com/standards/iso-20022/iso-20022-faqs/iso-20022-removal-unstructured-address Fedwire ISO 20022 Implementation Center: https://www.frbservices.org/resources/financial-services/wires/iso-20022-implementation-center What Is ISO 20022? (2021): https://strategictreasurer.com/44-what-is-iso-20022/ Updating ISO 20022: Exploring New Formats, Data, and Benefits (2023): https://strategictreasurer.com/277-updating-iso-20022/ Demystifying ISO 20022: The Future of Payment Formats (2024): https://strategictreasurer.com/webinar-demystifying-xml-iso-20022/ ISO 20022: From Compliance to Competitive Advantage (2025): https://strategictreasurer.com/372-iso-20022/ Timestamps: 00:00 Introduction 00:21 What ISO 20022 payment readiness means 01:11 November 2026 structured address requirements 03:01 Why non-ISO payment files are affected 04:14 Common payment readiness gaps 06:08 Assessing data and payment workflows 07:34 Final readiness checklist 08:39 Closing thoughts 08:59 Outro ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ABOUT STRATEGIC TREASURER ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Download The Strategic Treasurer: A Partnership for Corporate Growth by Craig A. Jeffery in Kindle, or hardcover: https://amzn.to/4uqwFQq As an Amazon Associate, we earn from qualifying purchases. Strategic Treasurer is recognized as a top tier consulting firm in the area of treasury and risk management. Corporate clients, banks, and technology vendors all rely on their industry leading advisory services that are backed by a deep awareness of current needs, practices, and budgeting priorities of treasury professionals through Strategic Treasurer's annual industry surveys and decades of treasury experience. Strategic Treasurer utilizes a senior consultant model where every project is managed by senior consultants with actual practitioner experience in corporate and/or banking roles. Visit us today at http://strategictreasurer.com. Or join in the discussion at one of our leading LinkedIn groups: http://strategictreasurer.com/linkedin/

In this episode, Craig Jeffery speaks with Arjun Krishnan of Valorean Technologies about the automation spectrum in treasury, moving from rules-based processing and analytics to AI assistance and autonomous agentic systems. They discuss practical AI use cases including cash forecasting, hedge management, fraud detection, payment processing, document processing, reconciliation, and natural language interfaces, while emphasizing clean data, strong controls, explainability, and human oversight as treasury teams evaluate how to apply enterprise AI responsibly.   Book Mentioned: Enterprise AI for Treasury: A Guide to Agentic Implementation: https://amzn.to/4vTH8Fv Company Websites: Strategic Treasurer: https://strategictreasurer.com Valorean Technologies: https://valorean.ai/

In this episode, Craig Jeffery speaks with Ryan Frederick of Transform Labs about the personal side of AI transition and what professionals should understand as AI reshapes work. They discuss why companies must treat AI as a core operating capability, not just a faster tool, and how staff can move from task-oriented work toward higher-value contributions involving judgment, relationships, problem-solving, and systems thinking. The conversation emphasizes that professionals should actively learn how to work with AI systems, direct agents, improve workflows, and become agents of change inside their organizations. Company Websites: Strategic Treasurer: Corporate Treasury Consultants » Strategic Treasurer Transform Labs: https://transformlabs.com

In this episode, Lee Patton speaks with Craig Jeffery of Strategic Treasurer about the 2026 ACH rule changes and what they mean for corporate treasury teams. They discuss the new company ID requirements, expanded risk-based fraud monitoring requirements, and which organizations must comply. Craig explains the importance of ACH fraud risk assessments, written policies and procedures, annual reviews, exception handling, and maintaining documentation that demonstrates compliance. The discussion also explores the concept of risk-proportionate controls, practical steps for organizations that have not yet completed compliance efforts, and why treasury should act as the coordinator for ACH payment governance across the organization. Links Mentioned: ACH Rules Overview: https://www.nacha.org/rules Company Websites: Strategic Treasurer: https://strategictreasurer.com

In this episode, Craig Jeffery speaks with Ryan Frederick of Transform Labs about how artificial intelligence is reshaping corporate strategy, operating models, and the broader economy. They discuss AI investment, automation, AI operating systems, and why organizations should view AI as a business transformation initiative rather than simply another software tool. The conversation explores how companies can measure AI success through business outcomes, improve customer value, and rethink competitive advantage in an AI-driven economy. Ryan also examines AI's impact on jobs, organizational design, and leadership, arguing that companies should focus on redesigning workflows around AI agents instead of simply automating existing processes. The discussion includes practical guidance for executives on AI implementation, governance, use case prioritization, and building an AI operating system that can scale across the enterprise. Company Websites: Strategic Treasurer: Corporate Treasury Consultants » Strategic Treasurer Transform Labs: https://transformlabs.com

In this episode, Craig Jeffery speaks with Nathan Dixon of Deluxe about how treasury and accounts receivable teams can transform fragmented payment data into actionable intelligence. They contrast traditional process-focused approaches with data-centric approaches, exploring how AI and advanced analytics can improve cash application, reduce exceptions, identify payer risk, accelerate forecasting, and uncover trends that would otherwise remain hidden. The discussion examines the role of APIs, AI agents, data normalization, natural language interfaces, and machine learning in modern receivables operations. Nathan explains how organizations can move from reactive exception management to proactive decision-making by leveraging clean, centralized data and AI-driven insights. They also discuss data security, model governance, synthetic data, and practical ways treasury and finance professionals can begin experimenting with AI tools today. Company Websites: Strategic Treasurer: https://strategictreasurer.com Deluxe: https://www.deluxe.com

In this episode, Paul Galloway of Strategic Treasurer discusses liquidity stress testing and how treasury teams can prepare for market shocks and operational disruptions. The conversation explores sensitivity testing, scenario analysis, supply chain vulnerabilities, funding risks, counterparty exposure, and contingency planning. They also examine the differences between corporate liquidity stress testing and regulatory bank stress testing, while emphasizing the importance of escalation paths, liquidity buffers, contingent capital facilities, and embedding stress testing into ongoing treasury planning processes. Company Website: Strategic Treasurer: https://strategictreasurer.com