The most common pattern we see in treasury reviews: managers with £15bn+ in AUM running the payment controls they had at £1bn. One approver. Shared login. No segregation of duties. It is capability debt, and it is precisely what operational due diligence is now testing.
The problem is not that these managers lack a treasury function. It is that the five components of one – people and accountability, process, policy and controls, technology, data and reporting – do not mature together. A manager can have institutional-scale technology and emerging-tier controls, or vice versa. That asymmetry is where risk lives.
Based on 15+ treasury reviews across managers from $2bn to $183bn in AUM, this paper maps what each component looks like at emerging, scaling, and institutional tiers. It settles the persistent confusion around outsourcing – explaining why “we use a fund administrator” is not a treasury strategy. It walks through when to actually buy a TMS and what to test to avoid an expensive mistake. And it sequences a 12-month roadmap prioritised by risk reduction, not ease.
The core finding: fix the controls before you buy the technology. Controls are cheap, and they close the gaps that create real operational risk.
WHITEPAPER
A Treasury Operating Model for the Scaling GP
Download the white paper to map your treasury function across five key components and see exactly where capability debt is hiding.
