What Treasurers in Barcelona Were Actually Asking

At EuroFinance Barcelona, the question that has dominated treasury for five years “when will regulation catch up?” came second. The top concern was interoperability: how do new tools connect to the systems treasury already runs? That reframe ran through both days, from the keynote stage to the practitioner sessions.

Two keynotes, one instruction: know your direction

Rt. Hon. Justin Trudeau, former Prime Minister of Canada, framed geopolitics as a power and leverage play with direct economic consequences, and was blunt that in a tariff war both the attacker and the target lose. His read is that this is the long-term normal, not a phase you wait out.

He carried the same realism into AI. Investment keeps scaling ahead of returns, and the genuine problem is people displaced without a path back into work. ROI comes from keeping humans involved and defining the limits of AI. 

His advice to treasurers ran against instinct. Chaos creates short-term opportunity, but a steady long-term growth path comes from resilience, consistency and high public confidence in institutions.

Margrethe Vestager, former Executive Vice President of the European Commission, offered the sharper image. Europe builds itself through crisis, she argued, and external pressure is what moves national leaders to act together as a union. 

On the AI Act, her framing was that regulation exists to make people trust AI, and that European funds should be promoting European innovation. Slow, but moving in the right direction. 

Her closing advice to treasurers echoed Trudeau’s: define where you want to go or you will walk in circles. Small steps still get you there as long as you know the direction.

The practitioner sessions showed what those small steps look like.

Forecasting cash for strategic insight: Linxon and Ripple Treasury

The session that drew the most attention was Forecasting Cash for Strategic Insight, with Jessika Emard, Treasury Senior Manager at Linxon, and Neal Cooper, Regional Director Cash Forecasting, EMEA and APAC at Ripple Treasury, moderated by Robert Novaria, Partner at Treasury Alliance.

Jessika’s starting point was people, not software. Define the challenges facing the key players first, meaning the treasurers and local finance teams. Then gather every team the process touches, including controllers, IT and treasury, to build the business case and standardize the process before the CFO and CEO join the conversation.

The problem she described was concrete. Linxon’s previous process involved roughly four hours of data collection per legal entity, before any analysis could begin. Her team needed consolidation that could be automated with the click of a button. Jessika credited Ripple Treasury with consolidating the data and displaying it in a readable way, and called the tool intuitive.

Fit mattered as much as function. Linxon needed a solution that grows with the business and a partner who understands the requirements and pain points first. It was obvious, she said, that Ripple Treasury understood Linxon, and both speakers described the result as a partnership rather than a purchase.

Neal carried the thread forward. If you are not innovating you might as well be going backwards, and AI is about elevating the value of human efforts rather than replacing it. Define what AI means for your company, then build the data foundation to support it.

The second day’s panels took that same argument in two directions, one toward people and one toward infrastructure.

Strategy starts with relationships

The Strategic Treasury Panel, with ASML, Porsche UK, Mattel and Avon, moderated by Caroline Stockmann, converged on people and relationships. Talk to marketing, sales and IT. Partner with your lead banks so they are there when the company needs liquidity and build a team that challenges your vision. 

The unglamorous work comes first. Automate the daily, monthly and quarterly tasks so treasury can spend its time on risk mitigation and liquidity strategy. Strategy also includes the ability to say no, and to benchmark your analysis well enough to explain that no to the board.

Digital assets need a rail, not a blockchain

The Digital Assets Panel, with HSBC, Kinexys by J.P. Morgan, Standard Chartered and BNP Paribas, landed where the poll did. Treasury needs access to the digital rail, and managing that implementation is the bank’s job. 

Their advice was practical. Start from the problem you are trying to solve, then find the right digital asset. Check whether your cash is in the right place, at the right time and in the right currency, and quantify the opportunity cost when it sits in the wrong location. 

The thing to avoid now, as BNP Paribas put it, is fragmentation.

Off the conference floor

Some of the most useful conversations happened away from the sessions. Ripple Treasury hosted a catamaran tour along Barcelona's coastline for treasury leaders, customers and partners. The mood was relaxed and the conversations were the kind a conference room rarely produces. 

They moved between product questions, partnership opportunities and the ordinary business of treasury people comparing notes. 

“Fantastic way to get to know the Ripple team better, understand more about the product, and assess potential partnership opportunities, while meeting a wide range of interesting people from the treasury community!”
Stewart Hagell, Director Corporate Treasury Advisory, KPMG UK

Ripple Treasury looks forward to hosting treasury leaders, customers and partners again in Amsterdam next year.

What comes next for treasury

Treasury teams are no longer waiting for digital assets, AI or new payment infrastructure to become someone else’s problem. They are working out how these changes fit into the systems they already rely on.

That starts with connectivity. When banks and payment infrastructure can work together, treasury can spend less time managing fragmentation and more time acting on what the numbers are telling them.

If you’re thinking through what that looks like for your team, we’d be happy to compare notes.

Talk to our team >>