Sibos 2025: Treasurers expect tokenisation to grow fivefold, says HSBC’s Global Treasury Pulse Survey - Trade Treasury Payments

HSBC launched the Global Treasury Pulse Survey today at Sibos 2025. The report highlights how the role of treasurers is shifting from custodians of cash to strategic partners at the centre of corporate transformation.

According to the survey, treasurers anticipate a fivefold increase in tokenisation, embedded payments, and wallet-based solutions over the next two years, as they adopt innovative payment models and digital assets in response to an evolving economic environment.

As per Manish Kohli, Head of Global Payments Solutions at HSBC, “Treasurers are no longer simply guardians of cash; they are becoming strategic leaders shaping the direction of their organisations. Digitisation, automation and real-time liquidity tools are transforming treasury into a growth enabler, unlocking efficiency, reducing risk and providing the agility businesses need to thrive. Technology is giving treasurers the platform to deliver at scale.”

The survey also introduces new data-led benchmarking capabilities, enabling treasurers from various sectors to compare performance across industries to identify best practices, sharpen their decision-making, and accelerate transformation within their own organisations.

Technology and digitisation build foundations for efficiency

Corporate treasuries are operating in an increasingly volatile environment, balancing resource constraints with demands to deliver higher levels of strategic value. The survey results reveal that operational cost reduction (53%), reducing financing costs (50%), and firm-wide adoption of new technologies (48%) are the top three business priorities for treasury teams.

Despite growing business complexity, treasury teams remain lean, with more than half of respondents operating with fewer than 10 full-time employees globally. These small teams are under enormous pressure to deliver, and many are slowed down by manual business processes. On average, firms in the survey still rely on manual spreadsheets to perform 32% of their treasury functions, a number that rises to 54% for cash flow forecasting and 45% for reporting and analytics.

Treasury departments have, on average, automated just 48% of their processes, with cash flow forecasting, intercompany loan management, and foreign exchange transactions still dominated by manual activity. The result is that treasury teams spend nearly two-thirds of their time running manual processes instead of driving strategic outcomes such as risk management and working capital optimisation.

Centralisation helps in optimising banking relationships

Treasuries that achieve high levels of automation and centralisation in their treasury functions are achieving efficiency gains of up to 70%. While most treasuries today face fragmentation resulting from managing numerous banking partners and accounts, they are addressing this challenge. 

Approximately 25% of respondents have completed a bank rationalisation exercise in the last two years, 31% are currently undertaking one, and 22% plan to do so.

Around 59% of respondents report they centralise their treasury operations as much as regulation allows. Visibility over cash positions is an example of an efficiency that treasuries can gain from optimising banking relationships. By consolidating bank relationships, treasuries can reduce fragmentation of cash balances, reconciliation challenges, and the cost of maintaining multiple bank accounts across jurisdictions.

Treasuries with optimised bank relationships are nearly three times more likely to have visibility over more than 90% of their cash balances than their peers. Around 43% of firms reporting high levels of bank partner optimisation can generate global cash positions in minutes, compared to only 19% for firms with lower levels of bank optimisation.

Capital efficiencies through advanced solutions

Automating and streamlining treasury processes is the top digitalisation priority for the next two years (61%), followed by leveraging data and analytics for more effective decisions (57%) and strengthening treasury controls and compliance (44%).

Businesses with higher levels of automation are almost twice as likely to generate cash positions in minutes and more than three times more likely to achieve over 90% cash visibility. Nearly half (46%) of highly automated firms can already produce cash positions in minutes, compared with only 24% of firms with low automation.

Payments modernisation leading to digital innovation

While adoption of tokenisation, embedded payments, and pay-into-wallet solutions is currently low (less than 10%) among respondents, these technologies are set for a five-fold surge in the next two years. By adopting emerging payment solutions, treasuries can achieve faster, more secure, and more transparent transactions while reducing fraud and operational risks.

As treasuries mature and reach higher levels of automation, their focus shifts from day-to-day process efficiency to leveraging the latest payments and AI innovations. Companies reporting higher levels of automation (75%+) are five times more enthusiastic about payments innovation than peers with lower levels of automation.

Centralising payments operations enables treasuries to accelerate straight-through processing, streamline reconciliation, and reduce the number of external banking partners they need. Treasuries reporting higher levels of centralisation are twice as likely to conduct payments netting and six times more likely to use a payment factory.

AI as the next frontier for efficiency gains

In treasury, firms see AI as the next opportunity to drive efficiencies and visibility across operations. Out of the full base of respondents, 71% believe AI has the potential to replace up to 25% of their activities over the next five years, with cash flow forecasting identified as an area where AI can add significant value.

To date, less than 30% of firms have implemented AI in finance functions. Even some of the most advanced treasuries are still just starting to explore or pilot AI use cases, with more automated firms being three times more optimistic about integrating AI into treasury operations, particularly in forecasting, fraud detection, and liquidity modelling.

HSBC’s advanced solutions for treasury transformation

To help clients address these challenges, HSBC has launched its advanced On-Demand Cash Concentration (ODCC) solution. ODCC enables clients to optimise liquidity globally and in real time, without waiting for end-of-day sweeps, while providing greater flexibility and control over cash resources. Integrated into HSBC’s digital platforms, ODCC works seamlessly via the Self-Service portal, with single sign-on to HSBCnet, which fits within clients’ existing treasury infrastructure.

Earlier this year, HSBC also introduced a new Seven-Day Cash Concentration solution in the UAE and Egypt, giving treasurers the ability to automate in-country liquidity management every day, including weekends and holidays.

Blockchain Innovation enabling real-time transactions

In addition, HSBC launched its new cross-border Tokenised Deposit Service (TDS), a blockchain-based solution that enables corporate clients to transfer multiple currencies in real-time with instant settlement securely. 

Following the first USD cross-border transaction between Hong Kong and Singapore in September, HSBC is expanding the service to include domestic payments in the UK and Luxembourg, supporting transactions in GBP, EUR, and USD.

These innovations are designed to provide treasurers with enhanced visibility, agility, and control, while demonstrating HSBC’s commitment to delivering advanced liquidity solutions to clients.

Read the full report here.