ATEL 2025 Highlights Cyber Resilience, Digital Currencies & API-Driven Treasury

On Tuesday 7 October 2025, the Luxembourg Association of Corporate Treasurers (ATEL) held its 2025 Annual Conference at the G.A.N.G restaurant in Strassen, bringing together around 100 participants.

In his opening remarks, François Masquelier, Chairman of ATEL, said the event marked association’s 31st anniversary and ran under the theme “Treasuring a Fast-Changing World in Intervening Times.” Drawing on recent EACT/EWC surveys, he highlighted priorities such as cash-flow forecasting, technology renewal, long-term funding and regulatory/digital transformation (instant payments, VOP). 

A session on macroeconomic trends and digital currencies with Elise Grazini, Senior Manager at BearingPoint, and Guido Bichisao, CEO and Founder of Senap Consulting, examined how geopolitical tensions are reshaping payment systems and accelerating policy debates. “We are seeing a shift away from traditional systems like SWIFT,” noted Mr Bichisao, with Europe’s digital euro under discussion. On ESG, speakers stressed that regulation often outpaces data quality, complicating measurement of real impact.

The cybersecurity session with Paul Gillen, Chief Security Advisor at Barclays, outlined current threats: ransomware remains the most likely catastrophic event, while the abuse of generative AI has lowered the barrier to cyber-facilitated fraud. “There is more abuse of generative AI by criminals than there is defensive use today,” he said. On resilience, he recommended mapping and tiering all treasury processes, annual threat-model testing and pre-agreed incident playbooks (legal, sanctions checks, negotiators).

Andre Saade, Head of Transaction Services at ING Luxembourg, explained why sustainability is now a treasury matter - from early investor activism and the GRI/UN frameworks to today’s reporting. The practical route, he said, is to map treasury KPIs to ESG KPIs, supported by reliable data and governance. He cited demand for products that reduce reporting burden and a forthcoming “Green Reference Account” linking balances to financed green assets with auditable reporting; platforms and dashboards will be key.

Lipta Mahapatra, Senior Product Lead at BNP Paribas Cash Management, said APIs have moved from simple connectivity to a strategic tool enabled by PSD2. “APIs are no longer just a connector; they’re a strategic tool,” she said, citing an insurance case where API-enabled redesign cut claim payouts “from two days to five seconds.” Common use cases include on-demand cash visibility, fraud prevention with instant payments and frequent FX services; SWIFT standards and aggregators are easing multi-bank connectivity.

The conference concluded with a session on current trends in treasury management, covering liquidity management and regulatory developments such as real-time payments and ISO 20022, presented by Alex Wong, EMEA Global Payments Solutions at Bank of America, followed by a presentation from Convera, closing remarks and Q&A, and a networking cocktail.