IGTA Journal - Autumn 2017

Luxemburg, Article: Treasury Transformation: Could Robots Soon Rule the World ? By Francois Masquelier , Chairman of ATEL, the Luxemburg IGTA Member Association, November 2017 Digitization of the economy The digitization of the economy is a fact, whatever your point of view and your business activity. We will be all hit, in a form or another. No one will escape to this major transformation. To paraphrase Alvin Toffler, we could call it “the fourth wave”. Should you accept it or reject it, no doubt, our ancient world is under a major transformation or what Maurice Levy from PUBLICIS called the “ Uberization ” of the economy. As all other finance functions, corporations and jobs, treasury has been facing challenges, changes and evolutions in the last 10 years, since the Global Financial Crisis. Actually the function has evolved over years, but more significantly over the last ones. As already said: “ You will either be the disruptor or the disrupted. There is no middle ground ” (Singularity University). Treasury function is a relatively young and new function, created 40-50 years ago maximum (as we know it today). It has evolved enormously over half a century. However, since the last crisis, even more than ever. The financial crisis has been a sort of catalyst for further changes. We could even talk about a revolution. Towards Treasury V.4.0 There are few major changes and key elements which explain this new situation: new regulatory environment more stringent, new complex IFRS accounting standards, combined with technological developments and new IT solutions (including fraud and cybercrime coming together with technological evolution), high market volatility, complexification of (doing) business and as a whole an obvious acceleration of things. IGTA eJournal | Autumn 2017 | 45