For much of the past decade (or maybe two!), treasury teams have operated in a cycle of disruption followed by adaptation. A shock arrives, processes come under pressure, systems are upgraded, and stability gradually returns. It’s that last piece which seems to be becoming a thing of the past.
Economic fragmentation, persistent geopolitical tension, regulatory expansion, and accelerating technological capability are colliding in ways that leave little room for linear planning. Treasury’s role is expanding accordingly.
Stability has become a rare luxury for finance and treasury teams. As volatility becomes the norm, the teams that thrive are those equipped to operate within it. Treasury’s role is no longer limited to liquidity stewardship and risk mitigation; it is increasingly expected to act as a control function for uncertainty itself.
This is the defining challenge for treasury in 2026 (and likely beyond). It’s not about predicting what comes next, but building the capability to respond when conditions change faster than forecasts can keep up.
This broad theme comprises many key trends heading into 2026, and here we’re looking at 6 of the most important for treasurers to be aware of.
1. Economic Fragmentation Replaces Global Cycles
One of the clearest shifts shaping treasury in 2026 is the breakdown of synchronized global economic cycles. For years, monetary policy moved broadly in step across major economies, but that assumption no longer holds.
Interest-rate trajectories now diverge meaningfully by region. At the end of 2025, the US and UK had base rates of 3.75%, while the European Central Bank had rates significantly lower at 2.15%, and other major economies such as Brazil (15%), Mexico (7%) and India (5.25%) substantially higher.
By extension, inflation proves stubborn in some markets while others flirt with stagnation. Currency volatility reflects domestic policy choices as much as macro fundamentals. For multinational organisations, the idea of a single ‘global’ funding or liquidity strategy becomes increasingly unrealistic.
For treasury teams, this fragmentation introduces a new layer of complexity. Cash concentration strategies must account for local constraints and opportunities. Liquidity buffers need to be calibrated regionally, not centrally. Funding decisions become less about minimising cost in aggregate and more about preserving flexibility across jurisdictions.
Scenario planning shouldn’t be an occasional stress exercise, but a core operating discipline. The ability to model and re-model outcomes as rate expectations, inflation data, or growth forecasts shift is becoming fundamental to maintaining control over liquidity and working capital in a fractured economic environment.
2. Geopolitics as a Daily Treasury Input
If economic divergence complicates planning, geopolitics now dictates the parameters within which treasury operates. In 2026, political risk is no longer episodic—it is a daily input into treasury decision-making.
The gradual decoupling between the US and China continues to reshape trade flows, capital movement, and currency exposure. Tariffs, sanctions, export controls, and regulatory restrictions can emerge with little notice and material financial consequences. Regional conflicts and political instability continue to drive FX volatility and counterparty risk, particularly in emerging markets.
For treasury, exposure management must be an agile, fluid process, not one based on static assumptions. Currency risk, banking relationships, and counterparty concentration must be continuously reassessed. Forecasts need to be refreshed quickly when policy changes land, often without warning.
In this environment, diversification becomes a form of risk management rather than a cost inefficiency. Treasurers are increasingly expected to maintain optionality in funding sources, banking partners, and liquidity structures, even if doing so introduces marginal complexity or cost. The premium placed on resilience continues to rise.
3. Regulation Expands Beyond Finance
Regulatory pressure on treasury isn’t likely to ease in 2026. Traditional financial regulation remains demanding, and new layers of oversight now extend into areas that sit at the intersection of finance, technology, and enterprise risk. This, combined with the above geopolitical factors, makes regulation a constantly moving feast.
It’s also because the areas that require regulation are growing fast as well. Rules governing artificial intelligence, cyber resilience, data governance, and operational continuity increasingly touch treasury systems and processes. As treasury platforms become more automated and interconnected, they fall under wider scrutiny from regulators, auditors, and internal risk functions.
This expansion creates a practical challenge. Manual processes and spreadsheet-driven workflows will struggle to meet rising expectations around auditability, transparency, and control. Even well-run teams find it difficult to evidence compliance at speed without automation built into their core processes.
As a result, the treasury response in 2026 is less about innovation for its own sake and more about defensibility. Controls, data lineage, and process transparency matter as much as efficiency gains. Technology decisions are no longer made solely within treasury, they increasingly involve risk, legal, compliance, and IT stakeholders from the outset.
4. Moving From Generative AI to Agentic AI
Against this backdrop, the role of artificial intelligence within treasury continues to evolve, but in a more measured and practical direction than early hype suggested.
Generative AI, which has gained fast prominence over the past couple of years, has been focused primarily on insights. Answering questions, summarising data, and accelerating analysis. By 2026, attention is expected to shift toward agentic AI, systems capable of taking action within defined rules and controls.
For treasury, this does not mean relinquishing decision-making authority. Instead, it reflects a shift in how work is initiated. Rather than waiting for a human prompt, systems are aiming to continuously monitor liquidity positions, identify exceptions, and propose actions aligned with pre-approved policies.
Examples include flagging emerging cash shortfalls, recommending funding or investment actions based on thresholds, or initiating workflows that require human approval rather than human discovery. The value lies not in replacing judgment, but in ensuring that judgment is applied earlier and more consistently.
But adoption will remain constrained by governance. Trust, transparency, and explainability determine how far organisations are willing to let systems act. In 2026, the differentiator is not access to AI capability (which is now essentially every organization), but the quality of the controls and processes that surround it.
5. The Steady Rise of Stablecoins
Few topics illustrate the gap between perception and reality better than stablecoins. Despite Bitcoin reaching new highs in 2025, this wasn’t accompanied by the usual bubble hype cycle. Is crypto becoming more grown up? Perhaps, but stablecoins in particular are surprising many in the way they are subtly and steadily becoming an increasingly valuable component of mainstream treasury.
Into 2026, the speculative stablecoin narratives that once dominated discussions have largely faded, replaced by quieter, more pragmatic evaluations of operational use cases.
For treasury teams, interest in stablecoins is increasingly tied to infrastructure rather than investment. Faster cross-border settlement, improved visibility into intraday liquidity, and reduced reliance on correspondent banking networks all present tangible benefits in specific contexts.
That said, adoption remains cautious. Regulatory clarity varies by jurisdiction, and counterparty risk requires careful assessment. Stablecoins are not a universal solution, nor are they likely to replace existing rails wholesale. Instead, they are being evaluated alongside traditional mechanisms as part of a broader toolkit for managing payments and liquidity timing.
The significance for treasury in 2026 lies less in widespread deployment and more in preparedness. Understanding how these instruments function, where they add value, and how they intersect with regulatory frameworks becomes part of the modern treasurer’s remit.
6. Treasury as a Strategic Control Function
All of these factors converge into one of the most consistent trends in treasury: while teams are not growing materially in headcount, they are expanding in scope and responsibility.
What distinguishes high-performing treasury functions in this environment is not just technical sophistication, but organisational positioning. Treasury increasingly acts as a strategic control function that connects economic reality, operational risk, and financial decision-making.
This role demands close collaboration with the CFO, finance leadership, risk, and IT. It requires systems that absorb complexity rather than expose it, and processes that enable rapid response without sacrificing control. Most of all, it requires a mindset shift from optimising for efficiency in stable conditions to maintaining resilience in unstable ones.
From Prediction to Preparedness
For 2026, the most effective treasury teams understand that the future is unlikely to behave as forecast. Precision matters, but flexibility matters more.
The advantage doesn’t lie in guessing the next shock correctly (which isn’t something that any forecaster wants to bet their career on!). It lies in building the visibility, controls, and optionality to respond when shocks inevitably arrive.
Trovata provides treasury and finance teams with the tools they need to gain instant insights, automate processes, and improve cross-departmental efficiency, as well as the ability to act swiftly when changes come.
From real-time, API driven cash management, sophisticated scenario planning and forecasting, consolidating transactions, integrated AI, automated reporting, ERP connectivity, and TMS functionality through Trovata TMS, it’s the all-in-one solution to navigate 2026 and beyond.
Treasury’s value is being measured less by how accurately it predicts outcomes, and more by how well it prepares the organisation to withstand them. Amidst seemingly permanent uncertainty, that may be the most strategic contribution treasury can make.
