Consistent, reliable & cross-bank: the shift to rule-based liquidity orchestration

As liquidity needs become faster and more complex, treasurers are redefining cash concentration beyond traditional zero-balancing. What was once a simple end-of-day sweep is now a rules-driven, cross-bank discipline designed to move cash reliably, transparently and where it creates the most value.

We sat down with François Masquelier to outline how that shift changes daily operations: from standardising policies across banks and entities, to leveraging modern connectivity for timely mobilisation, to enforcing the governance needed to trust automated decisions. He also highlights when cross-bank orchestration makes sense and which metrics best demonstrate early impact.

From a treasurer’s perspective, how do you frame cash concentration today? What should it cover from simple zero-balancing to more advanced, rule-based cross-bank and intragroup setups?

François Masquelier: I see cash concentration as a policy that mobilises liquidity to where it does the most good, executed reliably across banks and entities. At the straightforward end, you keep operating accounts at predefined targets and move surplus to a header account at day-end, with reverse top-ups when balances risk closing below floor. That alone removes a lot of end-of-day firefighting and gives you predictable working balances. As the organisation scales, the same principle evolves. Rules become conditional and time-aware; they respect different bank calendars and cutoffs, and they can propose movements for a signer to release when values are high or timing is tight. You also bring intragroup aspects into scope, so movements create or settle intercompany positions under a documented framework. The point is consistency: one rulebook applied everywhere, rather than a different construct for each relationship.

And what practical benefits does that approach deliver, especially when using modern connectivity and platforms?

François Masquelier: The benefits show up quickly. You reduce idle cash and overdraft usage, you access investable balances earlier (same day-value), and you cut manual effort at precisely the moments when teams are busiest. Because rules and outcomes are recorded, governance improves: approvals are evidenced, exceptions are explained, and audit questions are easier to answer. That matters when you operate across multiple banks and currencies.

Modern tooling amplifies this. You can trigger auto-funding from committed or uncommitted lines as accounts near floor, and direct surplus towards money market funds, notice or term deposits when thresholds are met. Cross-currency rebalancing can run inside agreed FX parameters, and virtual account overlays make reconciliation cleaner. In short, connectivity turns policy into execution, and execution into measurable results.

When does treasurer-led cross-bank orchestration make sense, and how does it shape collaboration with relationship banks?

François Masquelier: It makes sense wherever you have several core banks and want a single set of targets, thresholds, timings and approvals that applies across them all. Treasury retains ownership of parameters and exceptions, adapts more quickly to changes in the business, and avoids maintaining a different set‑up per bank. You get control without losing the benefit of multiple relationships.

It also widens the product conversation with banks. Once orchestration is established, bank capabilities can be delivered as callable services within your workflow: investment sweeps into MMFs or time deposits, automatic drawdowns from lines when operating accounts dip below floor, embedded FX for cross-currency sweeps, and pooling or virtual account structures aligned with policy. Whether the connection is API, host-to-host or SWIFT is secondary; the operating model is that treasury sets the policy and banks provide capacity, pricing and instruments that the policy can invoke efficiently.

What visibility and management information give you the confidence to let automation move money?

François Masquelier: Confidence comes from being able to see, explain and evidence every decision. I want one view of current balances and intraday movements across all banks, with drilldowns by entity and account. For each account or pool, there should be a clear inventory of parameters – targets, floors and ceilings, thresholds, calendars, frequencies and any conditional logic – so I can judge whether the configuration still reflects business reality.

Equally important is the execution trace. Each cycle should show what ran, what was skipped or escalated, and why, with timestamps and the users involved. A planned versus actual view, with tolerances and variance explanations, helps management conversations. Prioritised exceptions with next actions, health indicators for data feeds and connectivity, and clean exports with immutable logs complete the picture. With that, automation is no longer a black box; it is a transparent, governed process.

Which controls are non-negotiable in an automated cash concentration setup?

François Masquelier: The standard should be at least as safe as manual processing. Maker–checker and four-eye principle apply to both payments and rule changes, and administrative roles should be separated from operational ones. Change control needs versioning, effective dates and the ability to roll back, so you always know what rules were in force when a movement occurred.

On the operational side, strong authentication, least privilege access and regular entitlement reviews are table stakes. Beneficiary whitelists, value thresholds for elevated approval, and a documented path for exceptions and contingencies- such as cutoff misses, limit breaches or temporary connectivity issues – are essential. Daily reconciliations, monitoring of bank acknowledgements and tamper evident logs with policy-aligned retention provide the evidence base for audit and regulators, and they let you scale without increasing operational risk.

How would you stage the rollout, and which KPIs would you track in the first six months to evidence impact?

François Masquelier: Start small and make it measurable. Begin with one entity and currency, a limited set of accounts and a simple rule pack. Align signatories, approval chains and calendars, validate beneficiary whitelists, and run long enough in parallel to prove decisions and reconciliations. Once stable, scale by entity, bank and currency, adding auto-funding, investment sweeps and cross-currency elements only when the team is comfortable with exception handling. Define ownership early – who configures, who approves, who monitors and who liaises with banks – and keep a concise runbook for BAU and incidents.

For KPIs, work off a clear baseline. Track reductions in idle cash and overdraft usage, improvements in time-to-mobilise and on-time sweep ratios, higher straight-through processing with fewer manual touches, and a lower exception rate with faster resolution. Coverage and centralisation are useful – what share of balances and accounts sit under rules – and so is yield or interest expense uplift. Those metrics give the CFO an early, credible view of value and control quality, and they provide a feedback loop to refine data, rules and bank setups as you expand.