Nashvegasより愛をこめて： AFP2024の4つの感想

I just returned from my annual visit to the Association of Financial Professionals (AFP) conference in Nashville. The scoreboard showed I have 10 visits in the past 20 years which is a decent showing – but many names are 20 for 20!

With over 7,000 registrations (one of the largest ever) the event had more energy this year than in previous years. Perhaps that’s also because of the vibrancy of the location (convention center, hotels, and honky-tonk entertainment is almost all easily walkable), but I wonder also if the offset schedule with Money 20/20 helped with this. When these collide, it is not an issue for corporate practitioners, but it is a challenge for banks and vendors.

Here are my four main takeaways:

1 - Faster payments
In the past seven or eight years the US payments industry has gone from a staid mix of check, wires and ACH to a plethora of new payment options with same-day ACH, RTP by The Clearing House, and now FedNow. Add in new purchasing card products for good measure. Unlike in the movie, Field of Dreams, this has not been a “build it and they will come” moment for real-time payments. I attended a session that (refreshingly) discussed the challenges of real-time payments adoption. Corporates don’t clamor for this. Outside a few well aligned use cases, banks have been challenged to build compelling value propositions that reflect the under-discussed dynamic of the impact on receivables and the integration of RTP with batch-based business cycles.

2 – AI
Compared to other conferences I’ve attended this year, I’d say AI topics were lower-key at AFP. In much of general dialogue these days, “AI” has now become a synonym for GenAI. That’s a shame, because this obfuscates the existing contributions of “classic” AI under the hood of treasury technology. From matching and reconciliation to forecasting and other predictive scenarios, AI has already been transformative in treasury technology. However, AI models require high quality data for high quality outputs. Many corporates lament these data challenges but solutions for high quality data aren’t talked about enough at AFP. There are still huge opportunities to close these data gaps.

3 – Cash forecasting
Perennially, corporate treasurers rank insight to cash and forecasting as their top challenge. Judging by the solutions focus at the exhibition hall, and the titles of breakout sessions – yet again this remains a challenging problem to solve. ERP/TMS vendors, data aggregators, and several major banks all offer a variety of forecasting solutions. However, the issues around data diversity, richness, and quality noted above remain a stumbling block to successful forecasting adoption.

4 - Steak seasoning and the TSA
The AFP hosts an “AFP Insiders” lounge at the convention center. Topical for the region, a bourbon-based steak seasoning rub was offered as a complementary gift. I enjoy a good steak and so I tucked a jar into by bag. I’ve traveled a fair bit over the years and have a decent idea of what can and can’t be carried onto a plane. Who’d have guessed the steak rub would give the airport security equipment a hard time. By the time my bag was searched for the offending item, the agent already knew the ingredients – I was the fifth conveyor of said suspicious goods that morning. C’est la vie!