Treasury management (or treasury operations) includes management of an enterprise's holdings, with the ultimate goal of maximizing the firm's liquidity and mitigating its operational, financial and reputational risk. Treasury Management includes a firm's collections, disbursements, concentration, investment and funding activities. In larger firms, it may also include trading in bonds, currencies, financial derivatives and the associated financial risk management.
Most banks have whole departments devoted to treasury management and supporting their clients' needs in this area. Until recently, large banks had the stronghold on the provision of treasury management products and services. However, smaller banks are increasingly launching and/or expanding their treasury management functions and offerings, because of the market opportunity afforded by the recent economic environment (with banks of all sizes focusing on the clients they serve best), availability of (recently displaced) highly seasoned treasury management professionals, access to industry standard, third-party technology providers' products and services tiered according to the needs of smaller clients, and investment in education and other best practices.
For non-banking entities, the terms Treasury Management and Cash Management are sometimes used interchangeably, while, in fact, the scope of treasury management is larger (and includes funding and investment activities mentioned above). In general, a company's treasury operations comes under the control of the CFO, Vice-President / Director of Finance or Treasurer, and is handled on a day-to-day basis by the organization's treasury staff, controller, or comptroller.
Bank Treasuries may have the following departments: * A Fixed Income or Money Market desk that is devoted to buying and selling interest bearing securities * A Foreign exchange or "FX"