Michael Berkowitz, Head - Liquidity, Investments and Channel Services, North America explained how in an economic environment dominated by deleveraging, slowing global economic growth, and recession in Europe, financial markets are expected to remain volatile in 2013. Citi expect that in the North America there will:

• no recession, just low growth and interest rates remaining low
• regulatory reforms and changes will continue to have a major impact
• the likely response to the three MMF reforms being enacted is that most organizations will makes changes to their MMF investments
• the move to Basel III will continue apace: for lower rated companies, this may mean that bank loans become less available or more expensive.

(Source & Copyright©2012 - Citi)

Optimising liquidity
Ron Chakravarti, Head - Clients Solutions & Advisory, Global Liquidity & Investments, focused on the intersection of an enterprise’s trading, treasury and working capital models. This is a key driver in determining the effectiveness of global liquidity and risk management in Optimising Global Liquidity Planning. He has found that as corporate treasury departments optimise their treasury model to improve liquidity management, they are moving along a common evolutionary path as they centralise their corporate treasury: 

(Source & Copyright©2012 - Citi)

It was interesting to hear that Citi sees the role of the in-house bank expanding and believe that, combined with the effective use of the latest technologies, it is the most effective way to centralise liquidity and risk.

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And the breakfast was good too.