Introduction

Treasury Verdict is the electronic voting and panel discussion held at EuroFinance events worldwide. This report is based on the votes of corporate treasury professionals, bankers and other vendors and advisers who attended EuroFinance’s 11th annual conference on Cash, Treasury and Risk Management in India, held in Mumbai, on 12 and 13 November 2013.

Commentary was provided by these panellists:
• Jitendra Jain, CFO - Corporate Finance, GMR Group, India
• Stewart Rodd, Deputy Treasurer, Omnicom Finance, United Kingdom
• Bhasker Iyer, Executive Director & Head of Fixed Income Sales India, J.P. Morgan, India
• Rajiv Rajendra, EuroFinance Tutor & Managing Director, Aktrea Capital, Singapore (conference chair)

Key findings
• Approximately two-thirds of treasury and finance professionals in India (66%) feel more confident about their business’ prospects in the next year. This means that Indian treasurers are considerably more optimistic than their peers in Southern Africa (58%), Brazil (55%), and Europe (38%), who have all been polled on the same question in the past month. [Question 1, see Global Context below]
• A majority of treasurers in India (62%) believe that the rupee should be seen as one of the ‘fragile five’ currencies, alongside South Africa, Turkey, Indonesia and Brazil. [Question 2]
• Over six in every ten treasurers in India (63%) say that supply chain finance is important to their organisation. While this represents a majority, it is considerably less than their peers in Brazil (79%) who were polled on the same day. [Question 5]
• Some 61% of treasury and finance professionals in India are happy with their level of cash visibility and ability to deploy it within the organisation. This is significantly higher than their Brazilian peers that were polled on the same day, where only 41% were happy. [Question 6]