How cash management is keeping up with the need for speed

Ever-increasing demand for instant payments is creating new challenges and opportunities for finance teams and treasury officers. By 2028, it is estimated that USD58 trillion of payments worldwide will be settled instantly.¹

Asia has led the move to real-time payments for domestic retail transactions, driven by the rapid adoption of digital payment systems around the region. In India alone, 185.8 billion transactions were processed on the United Payments Interface (UPI) in the 12 months to March 2025.²

As expectations of immediacy spread throughout supply chains, companies need to be prepared for ever larger sums to come and go from their accounts at speed.

The challenges of managing instant payments at scale and in a secure framework are especially acute for businesses that operate across borders and in multiple currencies. Faster payments, however, also come with significant benefits to international businesses, including cost savings and greater visibility.

As a result, leading businesses are turning to innovative, real-time treasury solutions to better predict cash flow needs across the organisation, automate cash management tasks and streamline their operations by being able to execute on decisions immediately.

Today’s treasury technology allows businesses to reduce their operational liquidity levels significantly by monitoring activity, predicting inflows and outflows, and optimising the use of cash balances through sweeping, investment or hedging.

A range of liquidity tools and solutions are becoming popular with international businesses, including:

• Portals and dashboards providing enhanced cash visibility and advanced analytics. Powered by API connectivity and richer transaction data, these tools allow treasury teams to see cash positions across multiple banks and accounts in real time, helping identify areas for action, for example to consolidate excess cash or reduce currency mismatches. HSBC’s Liquidity Management Portal (LMP) also includes a cash flow forecasting option to facilitate funding and investment decisions.³
• Automation of standard cash management and FX transactions, such as automated sweeps. This function was recently deployed as part of an upgrade of treasury operations for Epsilon Telecom, a global networking provider with offices in London, Singapore and Sofia, based on the recommendations of HSBC’s Treasury Solutions Group.⁴
• Cash flow forecasting (CFF) tools, which can replace time-consuming manual tasks. HSBC in 2024 deployed a customised CFF tool for HP Inc, allowing the computer and device maker to save hundreds of manhours dedicated to cash positioning, cash flow analysis and forecasting in multiple markets across Asia.⁵
• Virtual accounts, which can simplify reconciliation and reporting without segregating liquidity pools.⁶ In Singapore, HSBC worked with fintech Syfe to create a virtual accounts solution that provides the company’s brokerage operation with an instant credit notification and automated name check when an investor transfers funds from a bank account to a trading account.⁷

The digitisation of banking and payments is transforming HSBC’s transaction banking capabilities. Today we are able to process more payments than ever before – 5.7 billion transactions each year, equivalent to 181 every second of the day. That gives us a wealth of data that helps us spot patterns and informs our advice to our clients.

On top of that, access to open banking data and live API integrations with global enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems allow us to integrate our banking tools with our clients’ existing tech stacks. This ensures we are able to provide treasury managers with real-time information that helps them make more informed cash management decisions.

We help businesses with analytical tools to create actionable insights to optimise their cash positions and streamline their liquidity positions when they need it, supported through automated processes that can capture efficiencies and self-service tools to execute at speed.

At the same time, we recognise that unlocking the full value of real-time information can require big changes to an established treasury platform. That’s why we’ve established a dedicated Treasury Solutions Group, which works with clients to analyse areas for improvement and recommends best practices for treasury transformation projects.⁸

And we continue to invest in next-generation technologies to keep pace with regulatory changes, such as tokenised deposits, providing an always-on, 24/7 settlement service for corporate clients looking to manage their liquidity in real-time.⁹ As more businesses see the value of speed in managing their cash and payments, our pursuit of faster, smarter solutions will remain as relentless as ever.