Cybersecurity, financial regulation and geopolitical uncertainty, including Brexit, are major concerns for corporate treasurers, according to research by the UK's Association of Corporate Treasurers (ACT). The survey of treasury professionals, titled The Business of Treasury, asked a range of questions on the major areas of development and focus for corporate treasurers and their view on how the profession is changing.

The key findings from the survey include:

• Treasury has become increasingly strategic and the time qualified treasurers are spending on strategic issues has risen from 24 per cent in the 2013 survey to 40 per cent in this latest survey. The average time being spent on operational issues has remained constant at 33 per cent over the same period.

• Boards now accept treasury requests for funding 84 per cent of the time, compared to 63 per cent in 2013.
• Planned investment in treasury technology is on the rise with 53 per cent looking to increase their spend compared with around 40 per cent last year.
• 82 per cent said cybersecurity (not specifically treasury-related) is their number one concern.
• 58 per cent of respondents were concerned about the quality of financial and business data available for strategic planning and decision-making.
• 36 per cent of respondents, up from 28 per cent last year, suffer frustrations in their role largely driven by the impact of financial regulation, such as derivative reporting under EMIR and managing KYC processes.
• Bank finance accounts for 38 per cent of funding and, together with debt capital markets (31 per cent, including private placements) and equity capital (13 per cent), that’s the lion’s share of funding at 82 per cent.

• Only 6 per cent of treasurers’ companies use supply chain finance or working capital finance sources.
• Risk management is a key growth area, with 51 per cent of UK corporate treasurers expecting to spend more time on this activity over the next 12 months.

• Treasury is seen as an increasingly varied and rewarding career with a high level of board exposure.
• Treasurers are becoming more professionally qualified: 51 per cent of treasurers look for higher levels of treasury qualifications when recruiting, compared to five years ago.
• Major corporate concerns are cybersecurity, financial regulation, market volatility and geopolitical uncertainty, including Brexit – although, intrigueling, non-Brexit-related geopolitical uncertainty was a little higher up the scale than Brexit itself for both UK and non-UK respondents.