Cash & Working CapitalTalking Shop
May 4, 2023

Talking Shop: Retailers Read Credit Card Tea Leaves

Editor’s note: NeuGroup’s online communities provide members a forum to pose questions and give answers. Talking Shop shares valuable insights from these exchanges, anonymously. Send us your responses: [email protected]. Context: How much consumers spend and how they pay for what they buy are critical topics for members of NeuGroup for Retail Treasury trying to manage risk and run forecasts amid fears of recession and abundant economic uncertainty. Retailers are closely tracking data showing a slowdown in spending while at the same time parsing info on purchases made…
Technology
April 27, 2023

Wringing Every Drop From a Tight Treasury Technology Budget

Maximizing the potential of existing tools and current employees depends on detailed plans and open communication. Technology budgets for treasury teams have always been tight, and high inflation and low corporate earnings are making it even harder to get new funding. At a recent meeting of Women in NeuGroup, members shared tips on maximizing resources for tech solutions. Two messages came through clearly: treasury teams should make sure they’re using every functionality in existing systems, and a system is only as…
Diversity & InclusionThe NeuGroup Insights Interview
April 27, 2023

Finding Career Success: Embrace Change, Understand Yourself

PwC principal Kristen Michaud discusses her career path from biology to finance, and what she’s learned along the way.In the latest episode of NeuGroup’s Strategic Finance Lab podcast, Kristen Michaud, a principal in PwC’s Finance Transformation group, joins NeuGroup’s Julie Zawacki-Lucci to discuss what they’ve learned from decades in finance—and advice they wish they’d received earlier in their journeys. In the podcast, which you can listen to now on Apple and Spotify, Ms. Michaud discusses her career path, beginning with a biology degree and possible plans for medical…
BankingRisk Management
April 27, 2023

The Big Picture Beyond Banks: A Holistic View of Counterparty Risk

A good risk management system requires a list of all exposures, according to CFO.University’s Steve Rosvold. The Silicon Valley Bank crisis raised concerns for many corporates around bank counterparty risk—but counterparty risk goes beyond just banks, as companies are also exposed to the actions of customers, vendors and investors. In order to effectively manage these risks, it is essential for a finance team to adopt a holistic approach that tracks all sources of exposure. That’s one takeaway from an upcoming…
Risk ManagementTalking Shop
April 27, 2023

Talking Shop: Bank Counterparty Risk: Does the Branch Matter?

Editor’s note: NeuGroup’s online communities provide members a forum to pose questions and give answers. Talking Shop shares valuable insights from these exchanges, anonymously. Send us your responses: [email protected]. Context: The crisis of confidence ignited by the flameout of Silicon Valley Bank prompted finance organizations at multinational corporations to ask a plethora of probing questions about bank counterparty risk and the safety of corporate cash. Though some questions have been answered and appropriate actions taken, ongoing fears around midsized regional banks like First Republic are causing…
FXTechnology
April 20, 2023

Automation Pumps New Life Into a FX Trade Life Cycle

Automating trade operations lets treasury focus on strategy and understanding economic drivers of FX exposures. “Automate the operations, unlock the strategy.” That concise phrase encapsulates the transformational and holistic approach to consolidating and managing data, including exposures, at high velocity within the FX trade life cycle adopted by one NeuGroup member company. And the phrase served as a subheading for a presentation made by a manager in the company’s global treasury FX risk management group at the fall meeting of NeuGroup…
Cash & Working CapitalCrypto
April 20, 2023

Speed, Stablecoins and the Future of Payments with Caitlin Long

A Wall Street veteran and crypto proponent sees stablecoins as an opportunity with real-world uses for corporates.Stablecoins—along with the entire world of cryptocurrency—have taken some lumps lately. That includes: faltering demand for two prominent players, BUSD and USDC; risk warnings about the digital coins from Fed vice Chair Michael Barr; and growing scrutiny and concern from the SEC, Congress and the Bank of England. Does all that mean finance teams at multinational corporations that need to keep up with developments in the payment space should turn their backs…
RegionalRisk Management
April 20, 2023

Russia Pain: OFAC Answers NeuGroup Members’ Sanctions Questions

Compliance officers at the Office of Foreign Assets Control offer insights on bank sanctions and licensing issues.At a meeting this week of NeuGroup’s Russia-Ukraine Crisis working group, a compliance officer from the Office of Foreign Assets Control acknowledged that the significant reduction in unsanctioned banks available to work with multinational corporations in Russia presents obstacles to companies authorized to do business in the country under US and other sanctions regimes, including firms supplying medicines. The session, moderated by NeuGroup senior executive advisor Paul…
Treasury Management
April 13, 2023

Back to Office Catalyst: Face Time To Boost Odds of Promotion

Leaders are trying subtle, mostly unspoken, ways of conveying that more time in the office is a path to advancement. Treasury and finance leaders at some companies with hybrid work policies are seeing progress enticing more team members to show up at the office by making it clear, if not saying it explicitly, that coming in and spending time with senior staff improves their chances for career advancement and promotions. A related talent takeaway from conversations at the fall meeting…
FP&ANeuGroup ViewpointTechnology
April 13, 2023

The Challenge of Building Agility Into Finance

How finance organizations can become more resilient amid disruption and demands to accommodate rapid changes in the business landscape.By Nilly Essaides Change, of course, is not new. But its speed and velocity have grown exponentially since the start of the pandemic. And its relentlessness is pressuring finance departments to speed up the delivery of data-driven decision-making support to the C-Suite and business leaders. An uncertain economic environment, a cloudy outlook for interest rates and inexorable technological innovation present CFOs and…