Latest news with #treasurers
Forbes
15-07-2025
- Business
- Forbes
What You May Be Losing By Ignoring Embedded Payments
John F. Rubinetti III, President of B2B Payments, Deluxe. The shift to embedded finance isn't just about innovation; it's survival. The operational strain of managing disjointed payment systems and their psychological toll are often understated. This fragmentation slows down operations, clouds visibility and holds back the agility that today's businesses and, more importantly, their customers need. Having the right infrastructure isn't just a nice-to-have. It's how you keep pace, stay in control and lead with confidence. While today's business-to-business (B2B) transactions evolve, those who cling to legacy tools aren't saving money—they're collecting risk. Embedded payment platforms are more than convenience-driven tools. They're potential assets that can empower treasurers to enhance liquidity management, accelerate reconciliation and gain real-time visibility into financial operations. By ignoring them, organizations may be exposing themselves to inefficiencies, employee burnout, limited growth and cyberattacks. As financial leaders confront the challenges of a dynamic economy, it's time they ask themselves, 'How much longer can we afford to not move forward?' The operational drain you don't see. More than inefficient, manual finance operations introduce unnecessary risk. Maintaining disconnected, cobbled-together systems requires constant troubleshooting and consumes two valuable resources: time and money. This fragmentation slows operations and restricts an organization's ability to scale, adapt and compete. Embedded payments should be the backbone that links treasury workflows to the broader business experience. By integrating payments directly into financial operations, companies can eliminate friction, enhance compliance and create a foundation for long-term strategic growth. Embracing embedded finance should position companies for a future that allows agility, efficiency and security to drive success. Friction fatigue is real. Just as online shoppers often abandon carts after a clunky checkout, internal stakeholders often disengage from systems that create friction and fatigue. In today's financial ecosystems, cognitive load, effort avoidance and choice paralysis drive user behavior. Solutions that minimize complexity and reduce the fatigue of making decisions are naturally the most requested. These psychological dynamics also affect finance professionals, as fragmented workflows create inefficiencies and increase workflow management. Key challenges include: • Slow approvals are stalling key transactions and operational agility. • Murky audit trails make compliance and oversight challenging. • Delayed forecasting is impeding strategic planning and cash flow visibility. • Fraud and risk exposure are increasing transaction vulnerabilities. Embedded finance can help address these barriers and unlock streamlined, secure and future-ready payment experiences that enable faster reconciliation and stronger audit-readiness. Unified portals cure payment complexity. Bringing credit, ACH, wallets and other payment platforms into a single, unified portal simplifies disbursements by reducing friction and lowering overhead, while enhancing control. Beyond streamlining the user experience, it also unlocks the power of consolidated data. A single source of truth elevates decision-making across departments and enhances transparency. Unified platforms don't just make payments easier—they make operations smarter, more agile and more resilient. This foundation helps build trust and drive long-term customer loyalty. Prioritize proactive payments upgrades. Too often, payments infrastructure is relegated to the back office. But forward-looking organizations recognize it as a growth enabler. Treating it as anything less limits your potential. The complexity of building and managing payment platforms internally is a burden that businesses can no longer afford to ignore. The better path is to adopt scalable, secure solutions that eliminate fragmentation and fuel long-term success. As we enter the second half of 2025, now is the time to stop allocating internal resources to outdated systems. Redirect your teams to focus on what moves business forward. Don't wait for a pain point to invest in infrastructure. Build it now. The result will be a lower total cost of ownership, minimal operational friction and a resilient foundation that grows alongside the organization. As the world where embedded payment adoption is becoming the norm, choosing not to integrate is a decision to fall behind. The information provided here is not investment, tax or financial advice. You should consult with a licensed professional for advice concerning your specific situation. Forbes Finance Council is an invitation-only organization for executives in successful accounting, financial planning and wealth management firms. Do I qualify?
Forbes
08-05-2025
- Business
- Forbes
Legacy Warnings Still Restrict the Use of Stablecoins in Treasuries
The adoption of stablecoins by mainstream global liquidity providers could bring faster transactions, lower costs of doing business, and easier global transfer to businesses and individuals alike. These attractive qualities make stablecoins a natural choice for global treasurers. Yet, they aren't used that often. When I speak to CFOs and treasurers, it's not that they are resistant to using stablecoins - just reluctant to navigate the patchwork of regulations and policies in using them. Even worse, some of the policies they refer to are really just 'positions,' which despite being years old, are still strong enough to ward off any new adopters. To back up: Treasurers always look for faster, cheaper sources of liquidity and easier methods for cross-border transfers. Stablecoins seem to meet most of these requirements. They could bring more efficiency to global remittance and treasury flows, as by their design, they are liquid and easy to transfer (where they are accepted). And in a perfect world, they would offer a more accessible, cost-effective, and transparent method to transfer funds. Increased use of stablecoins could also give liquidity providers a boost in competitiveness, improve their operational efficiency, and give them the ability to attract a broader range of traders, investors, and customers. I see how stablecoins do this in plenty of markets - they are seriously underutilized by many of the world's largest players. (For what it is worth: The European Parliamentary Research Service, in their report on stablecoins, also acknowledged that stablecoins have the potential to enhance financial inclusion in global markets, boost overseas remittances, and to positively impact international trade and global payment arrangements). Despite these benefits, stablecoins still haven't been adopted en masse, and that's due to misconception and mis-regulation. In 2019, a report by the Group of Seven (G7) countries identified several potential risks that stablecoins could pose, including a lack of adequate consumer and investor protection, threatening payment system integrity, their use for illicit finance, and other obstacles to financial operational resilience. What was overlooked is that stablecoins can actually deliver operational resilience for global treasuries. The other concerns raised are important, but are far more likely to be exploited by a memecoin, not a fiat-backed stablecoin. This is just one example of a past (strong) objection - there are dozens more to be found, easily. If I'm a corporate treasurer, all I need to look up is, 'stablecoin legality in my country/regions of operation' and I can find half a dozen institutional warnings and objections to the tech. Even if, now, it is either legal or widespread in its acceptance. All to say: These past objections still keep liquidity providers from fully using stablecoins. Even with the new guard in the U.S. sending positive signals about crypto, and MiCA regulation in play in Europe, the previous years of warnings have built up a resistant hesitancy amongst liquidity providers to adopt them. The early adopters, who were either in favorable markets or able to tolerate operating in a 'gray area' of compliance, have flourished thanks to their stablecoins. Licensed businesses including payment services providers, money transfer operations, banks, and more use them daily. Regulators could review these use cases and use them to develop a flexible framework that gives licensed financial services providers the room to use stablecoins without fear (while also updating their previous guidance). Or, alternatively, they could pass stablecoin-explicit guidance. Until there's clear regulation that can provide a 'translation layer' for stablecoin use to comply with existing policies, there just isn't a clear road ahead for many providers. The absence of this policy not only deprives businesses of immediate transactional advantages, but also jeopardizes our economy's long-term growth. This is especially true in the world of treasury, fintech, finance and foreign exchange, where speed and rates define your ability to stay liquid and afloat. If multinational businesses, fintechs, and even banks could optimise their treasury management with stablecoins, that means their customers (SMEs, startups, individuals) could benefit from these savings too. Treasuries that run better are better for everyone. Stablecoins are a part of that future. The sooner we have regulation that acknowledges this, the faster everyone - from individuals to multinational businesses - can start realizing the savings.
