Adyen and Boston Consulting Group have published research that links fragmented banking and payments arrangements with weaker cash visibility and higher operational workload for finance teams.
The joint Treasury Report draws on research from nearly 300 CFOs and corporate treasurers across North America and Europe, plus more than 30 interviews and surveys with finance and payments managers. It describes a corporate treasury environment where firms manage multiple banking relationships, payment providers and accounts at the same time.
Fragmentation costs
The report says the average enterprise surveyed works with five to six banks and manages more than 40 bank accounts. It also says respondents use an average of 12 payment providers, split across pay-ins and payouts.
Adyen and BCG argue that this structure creates operational complexity that shows up in day-to-day treasury work. The research cites time spent on account visibility, bank relationship management and handling pay-ins and payouts. It says teams spend 10% of their time visualising accounts, 13% managing bank relationships, and more than 20% on handling pay-ins and pay-outs.
The report links this workload to manual processes and multiple systems for approvals, execution and reconciliation. It identifies operational control across those activities as the most critical risk for treasurers.
The survey also points to challenges around visibility and forecasting. It says 48% of CFOs cite data-driven liquidity visibility and forecasting as their top challenge. It also says one in four businesses struggles to optimise liquidity and working capital.
On working capital, the report says fragmentation can trap liquidity and increase working capital requirements. It also points to reduced returns on positive balances, described as float, alongside lower financial flexibility.
The research highlights timing risk for businesses with short operating cycles. It says a mismatch between the timing of pay-in and payout can elevate risk and reduce the potential to generate returns on working capital. It says 18% of CFOs consider the speed of in-/outgoing payments as the biggest challenge they face today.
Consolidation push
The report frames consolidation as a route to reduce the number of integrations and relationships that treasury teams manage. It also describes consolidation as a way to reduce treasury fees and free up capital and resources.
Survey responses in the report indicate demand for more integrated approaches to cash management. It says 74% of respondents would like to leverage more integrated money management solutions that cover the entire cash lifecycle.
Among those seeking an integrated solution, the report says 88% are likely to consolidate these services to fewer providers than they currently use. The report also notes that respondents still expect to use more than one provider in practice, given the range of services involved in money movement.
One quoted passage in the report links treasury priorities with customer-facing considerations across payment flows.
"Treasurers are moving beyond optimising liquidity in isolation. They're optimising the entire receivable-to-payable flow with customer experience at the center. This shift will shape the next generation of finance," said Ethan Tandowsky, CFO, Adyen.
Treasury inflection
The report argues that corporate treasury has reached a point where firms can reassess the role of the function inside finance operations. It describes a shift away from fragmentation toward unification, where companies treat the flow of funds as a strategic advantage rather than an operational constraint.
It also sets out a view of the conditions that would make this shift practical, including established providers, modern systems and broader access to payment rails. The report links these factors to what it calls an appetite among finance functions to unify processes and improve them.
BCG said CFOs and treasurers should raise expectations of internal treasury operations and external partners. "Corporate Treasury is at an inflection point. Trusted providers, modern technology, adequate payment rails, and finance function's appetite to unify and improve are all there. It's time for CFOs to demand more from their treasury function and from the partners who power it," said Stanislas Nowicki, Managing Director and Partner, Boston Consulting Group.
The companies said the research covers finance leaders in the US, UK and EU. The report says its findings point to simplifying the technology stack as a central issue for treasury teams as they review account structures, bank relationships and payments arrangements.