Graham Warner
Hey Ken.
Ken Chang
Hey Graham. Great to see you.
Graham
Hey man, great to see you.
Ken
How are things?
Graham
All's well. Exciting times.
Ken
Absolutely.
Graham
So, Ken. we've been meeting with a lot of clients over the last few weeks, and themes keep bubbling up. The ones that are consistent is just the sheer speed of technical change, AI comes up a great deal, geopolitical transitions and challenges and then real-time treasury. I'm seeing a huge amount of clients finally, really at scale, taking advantage of APIs, of real time payments, which allow them to be much more nimble with their cash, improve their working capital and really have a real time view on their positions. The goal has been turning cash forecasting from really being an art to true science and we're getting there. What are you seeing?
Ken
That's very consistent with what I'm seeing in terms of the demand side of the compute power, which is driving AI to produce better quality information, but more importantly, fast information. So, it's been pretty fascinating to see the scale of the builds, the projects that are going on to support the data centres, which are feeding into the AI infrastructure.
Other industries have been equally impacted. I think energy is coming on in a big way, and there'll be other things that pop up that require capital. And thankfully, our markets are very liquid and ready to support these types of projects right now.
Graham
Geopolitically, it's unprecedented times, right? Whether helping clients navigate, supply chains being changed or disrupted, obviously tariffs, the impact across the board, sanctions evolving. It really demands clients, treasurers, to partner with their key suppliers, but also their banks.
And it's our job to make sure that we bring the firm to them. And we're spending a lot of time on scenario planning with clients, sort of working through what the potential risks are or risk that actually exist and playing it out and in best case, pivot to turning into an opportunity for clients. Treasures are really going from being much more proactive and driving value throughout their enterprises.
Ken
It's consistent with what I'm hearing as well. There's been some anxiety on where we're going to go with the geopolitical environment, how tariffs are going to work. The theme of deglobalisation has been prominent in our conversations this year.
This is leading to great hedging conversations and activity, not only on FX but also in terms of interest rates. Thankfully, we're in a cutting cycle, at least for a little while here. But that also introduces other risks because we've been in a pretty high-interest rate environment, and treasurers also need to think about the asset side of their balance sheet.
So, a lot of interesting I'd say conversations have come up because of the uncertainty and deglobalisation that has impacted not only the way treasuries function, but also how companies think about their future path, where they want to build, where they want to be, where they want to produce. And that is a great topic of conversation for all of us.
Graham
Yeah, it's exciting times. And this is why we do these jobs, right? I've got to run to a plane, but it's great catching up.
Ken
Great seeing you.
