OUTLINE
For decades, corporate treasury operated in cycles. Payments moved in batches. Liquidity visibility was updated at the end of the day. Reconciliation happened after the settlement, and risk controls were layered on top of processes that assumed time was available. That assumption no longer holds.
Treasury is now operating inside a real-time economy.
The Clearing House reported that the RTP® network processed 343 million transactions in 2024, totalling $246 billion in value, with strong year-over-year growth. Instant and faster payments are no longer experimental. They are becoming standard operating rails.
When money moves instantly, treasury cannot rely on yesterday’s data. At the same time, risk exposure has intensified. The 2025 AFP Payments Fraud and Control Survey (reflecting 2024 activity) found that 79% of organizations experienced attempted or actual payments fraud. In the survey commentary, AFP noted that fraud levels remain persistently high despite expanded controls.
Speed without embedded control is operational risk. And most traditional treasury management systems were never designed for this environment.
Traditional TMS platforms were built to centralize visibility and reporting. They were effective when payments were slower and bank connectivity was limited. But they were not designed for:
• Multi-rail orchestration
• Instant settlement
• API-driven ecosystems
• Embedded finance expectations
• AI-driven forecasting
Deloitte’s Global Corporate Treasury Survey highlights that modernization of treasury operating models has become a strategic priority for organizations. The report emphasizes the growing focus on scalable infrastructure and technology transformation within treasury functions.
The issue is not that legacy TMS platforms are obsolete. The issue is that the financial environment has evolved faster than the architecture supporting it.
Today’s treasury teams often operate across disconnected systems: bank portals, ERP platforms, accounting tools, spreadsheets, payment processors, and compliance tools. Even when a TMS is deployed, reconciliation frequently requires manual intervention. Multi-bank coordination can become resource-intensive. Visibility into liquidity may still be delayed by integration constraints.
Treasury remains centralized in theory but fragmented in execution. That fragmentation becomes increasingly expensive as transaction velocity increases.
Embedded treasury represents a structural redesign rather than a feature enhancement.
Instead of treating treasury as a standalone application, embedded treasury delivers liquidity management, payment orchestration, and reconciliation capabilities through APIs that integrate directly into operational workflows.
In practice, embedded treasury means that real-time balance visibility, routing logic, approval hierarchies, and reconciliation automation exist inside the systems where work already happens — ERP dashboards, corporate banking interfaces, lending platforms, and marketplace portals.
This architectural shift addresses the fundamental tension treasury faces today: speed versus control.
What Is Embedded Treasury?
Embedded treasury is the delivery of treasury and cash management capabilities via APIs and embedded workflows — directly inside the operational systems where corporate users already work.
When payment rails accelerate, manual oversight becomes unsustainable. When fraud attempts affect nearly four out of five organizations, delayed detection becomes unacceptable. When corporate clients expect digital experiences similar to fintech platforms, static treasury portals feel outdated. Embedded treasury infrastructure resolves this tension by embedding controls at the point of initiation, not after settlement.
The modern enterprise rarely operates on a single payment rail. It may use EFT, ACH, RTP, Interac e-Transfer, wire transfers, cross-border routes, and card-based disbursements — often across multiple banking partners. Each rail operates under different settlement timing, return logic, cutoffs, and data formats.
The Bank for International Settlements, in its work on ISO 20022 harmonization, notes that richer, structured payment data improves efficiency and interoperability in cross-border payments. That observation underscores a broader truth: standardization and normalization are essential when operating across heterogeneous systems.
Embedded treasury infrastructure introduces a unified orchestration layer that standardizes payment events, applies routing policies consistently, and normalizes data across rails. It allows treasury to treat multi-rail payments as a controlled environment rather than a collection of exceptions.
Artificial intelligence is increasingly influencing finance functions, but its effectiveness depends entirely on the quality and structure of the underlying data.
McKinsey has observed that finance teams are deploying AI to deliver “faster insights and stronger controls,” particularly in forecasting and anomaly detection. Treasury is uniquely positioned to benefit from this shift, but only if infrastructure supports it.
AI requires:
• Clean transaction identifiers
• Standardized event streams
• Structured remittance data
• Timely settlement updates
Legacy, batch-based systems do not naturally produce this environment. Embedded, cloud-based treasury infrastructure does.
Once data flows are normalized and events are standardized, AI can support liquidity forecasting, routing optimization, anomaly detection, and automated exception triage. Treasury transitions from reactive reconciliation to predictive liquidity management. This is the moment treasury becomes strategic rather than operational.
The structural transformation of treasury is not limited to corporates. Fintech platforms and enterprise software providers are embedding payment and cash management capabilities directly into their ecosystems. Corporate clients increasingly expect real-time dashboards, API connectivity, and automated workflows as baseline functionality.
Institutions that rely solely on traditional treasury portals risk losing engagement to platforms that provide embedded financial experiences. The modernization imperative is therefore twofold: operational and competitive. Banks must modernize treasury experiences without destabilizing core systems.
This is where Treasury-as-a-Service models have emerged.
Treasury-as-a-Service introduces an API-first orchestration layer that sits above existing core banking systems. It enables financial institutions to deliver embedded, cloud-based treasury and cash management capabilities without replacing foundational infrastructure.
VoPay’s Treasury-as-a-Service model reflects this architecture. Our platform is built as a multi-tenant, API-first environment designed to unify bank connectivity, ledger management, and process automation. It operates across Canada and the United States and aligns with FINTRAC, OSFI B-10, RPAA, SOC 2 Type 2, and PCI compliance standards.
Rather than replacing core systems, this approach centralizes orchestration while preserving underlying infrastructure. It allows institutions to launch branded digital treasury portals, automate reconciliation workflows, and enable multi-rail routing, without multi-year core transformation projects.
VoPay delivers a Three-Layer SaaS Architecture that unifies bank connectivity, ledger management, and process automation, transforming fragmented financial operations into a single, scalable, and fully automated system.
The broader implication of embedded treasury infrastructure is strategic repositioning. Treasury historically focused on reporting and reconciliation. With real-time data orchestration and AI-enabled forecasting, it begins to influence liquidity strategy, risk management, and revenue generation.
Predictive cash visibility improves borrowing and investment decisions. Embedded routing logic reduces transaction costs. Automated exception handling lowers operational overhead. Real-time dashboards improve client experience. The shift is subtle but profound.
Treasury moves from a back-office control function to a forward-looking liquidity intelligence center. And in a real-time economy, liquidity intelligence is a competitive advantage.
| Legacy TMS | VoPay Embedded Treasury Infrastructure |
|---|---|
| Standalone portal | API-first embedded architecture |
| Manual reconciliation | Automated orchestration & normalization |
| Single-bank focus | Multi-bank & multi-rail integration |
| Batch visibility | Real-time dashboards |
| Limited innovation cycles | Modular cloud deployment |
| Cost-heavy custom builds | Pre-built scalable platform |
The convergence of faster payments, persistent fraud risk, embedded finance ecosystems, and AI-driven analytics is reshaping treasury architecture across North America. Institutions that recognize this structural shift will modernize incrementally and strategically. Those who delay may find that treasury innovation is occurring outside their ecosystem.
Treasury cannot remain portal-centric and batch-based. It must become embedded, orchestrated, cloud-native, and AI-ready.
Speak with our expert Treasury & Fintech Advisory team today!
