For CFOs and treasurers in Asia, navigating an uncertain and volatile environment, liquidity is critical. That’s according to findings from Asset Benchmark Research’s annual Treasury Review 2025 ( TR 2025 ), which saw a number of treasury management respondents share their concerns about having enough funds to meet their short-term obligations, ensuring their respective company’s operational stability.

Other key treasury goals mentioned by the respondents include optimizing financing costs and improving cash flow forecasting. Optimizing financing costs is critical going forward as it allows treasury management professionals to add value to their operations by improving working capital and diversifying funding sources.

For several respondent companies, the establishment of a regional treasury function was part of the natural evolution of their finance operations to have better control, for instance, over their growing operations.

Comparable to previous years, areas such as bank relations, payment/settlement activities and funding decisions were typically centralized at the regional treasury centre ( RTC ) level. By consolidating bank relationships and payment activities at the RTC, companies gain better control over their cash flows, liquidity and financial strategies. Centralizing funding decisions ensures a uniform approach to capital management, minimizing the risk of fragmented or conflicting financial policies across regions.

For funding decisions, several treasury management professionals mentioned that by consolidating funding decisions with banks, a company can build stronger relationships with its key banking partners, which might help them negotiate better terms on loans, lines of credit or other financing arrangements.

These were some of the observations from Asset Benchmark Research’s annual Treasury Review 2025 ( TR 2025 ), which engaged with over 600 treasury management professionals, including CFOs and treasurers, across the region in early 2025 on how they view the current trends shaping finance/treasury and the service providers with which they work.

The TR 2025 findings represent just the tip of the iceberg of uncovered by Asset Benchmark Research. Stay tuned for more insights in the coming weeks.