Treasury Technology
Published  13 MIN READ

Robo Treasury: Positives and Pitfalls

Robotic process automation has the potential to be a powerful tool for treasurers – especially those looking for new ways to garner efficiency gains. What’s more, as a relatively easy-to-deploy technology, RPA can deliver significant value in a short timeframe. But is RPA really a silver bullet for treasury? We ask four industry experts for their opinions.

Whether you’re an R2-D2, RoboCop, or WALL-E fan, stereotypical movie views of robots aren’t helpful when it comes to discussion around robotic process automation. Unlike the all-singing, all-dancing robots of science fiction, RPA is simply an automated rules-based software that executes pre-programmed tasks.

Nevertheless, RPA is making waves among the treasury community. According to PwC’s 2019 Treasury Benchmarking Survey, 47% of treasurers believe RPA will be either relevant or highly relevant over next two-to-three years. The survey also identifies interesting use cases for RPA – ranging from payment execution to accounting and management reporting (see fig.1).

Fig 1: RPA Use Cases

Fig 1: RPA Use Cases

Source: PwC Treasury Benchmarking Study 2019