Electronic payments. Cryptocurrency. Artificial intelligence. What once were words in science fiction movies are moving into the realm of possibility in commercial payments and banking, according to TD Bank's 2017 Treasury Management Survey.
TD polled 340 corporate treasurers and other finance professionals at the 2017 Association for Financial Professionals Annual Conference in San Diego, California, to learn more about their investment priorities and near-term business plans.
For 2018 and beyond, finance professionals name process automation (31 percent), distributed ledger/blockchain (23 percent) and artificial intelligence/robotics (15 percent) as the top disruptive technologies that will have the largest impact on their jobs over the next two to three years.
Other key insights from the survey:
Finance professionals will prepare for technological/electronic changes by:
- Leveraging solutions from fintech providers – 31 percent
- Developing in-house technology to get a leg up on competitors – 23 percent
- Hiring more tech savvy employees to keep up with the trends – 15 percent
- Taking a "wait and see" approach – 29 percent
Commercial payments innovation will happen through:
- Faster or real-time processing: 52 percent
- Improved mobile applications: 20 percent
- Higher security/lower risk of fraud: 18 percent
- Developing consistent remittance formats and data: 9 percent
Want to learn more about Innovation?