2025 ION Treasury ConnectION Conference Highlights === Ali Curi: Hi everyone, and welcome to a special edition of Treasury ConversatION. We're recapping this year's ION Treasury ConnectION Conference held in May in Atlanta. We'll hear from partners, clients, and attendees as they share their thoughts on the event and their takeaways. Let's begin with ION CEO, Sunil Biswas on the value of face-to-face ConnectION, followed by Patrick O'Callaghan from Goldman Sachs and KPMG's Dirk Bondzio. Here's Sunil: Sunil Biswas: Well, Treasury ConnectION Conference is a unique opportunity where we're able to bring together our user community across our platform for treasury solutions. And over two days we did info share sessions, we shared experiences all focused on ION's treasury management solutions. But I would say overall what's really great is it's an in-person event and provides an opportunity to network across the community, both ION-to-customers, between our customers and where we have other solution and partners present to who help in what we do with our customers. It's this great networking opportunity to bring fresh ideas to the forefront. Ali Curi: Here's what Patrick O'Callaghan from Goldman Sachs had to say: Patrick O'Callaghan: It was a great experience for me personally. It's a great opportunity to network with clients, partners, and vendors to see how technology can continue to provide efficient ways for corporate treasury professionals to enhance their policies and procedures. Ali Curi: ION partner Dirk Bondzio from KPMG also shared his point of view. Dirk Bondzio: You meet a lot of experts where you can directly go into discussions, but also you meet a lot of other clients which share some of your challenges, but also might have great solutions and approaches to our treasury challenges. Ali Curi: Next, ION innovations transforming daily work. ION's, Sunil Biswas, and ION's Chief Client Success Officer, Jacqui Drew, explain their real world impact. Here's Sunil: Sunil Biswas: So if you think about the treasury management solutions that we present. The primary reason for adopting a solution is a specialist need in financing. So Enterprise Payment Hub brings it all together in one place. You can look at your payments and you can schedule 'em for optimal cashflow management. That's an example one innovation that we showed and something that's launching into this client community this year. Ali Curi: And, here's Jacqui Drew: Jacqui Drew: A big part of our investment in our Wall Street Suite products is enabling treasurers to manage through exceptions. So a number of the demonstrations and also the talk tracks from our customers were around how they are able to manage this on an exception basis, rather than looking at every detail with a fine-tooth comb. Ali Curi: At the conference, AI and its tangible benefits were at the forefront of discussions. Jacqui Drew reveals efficiency breakthroughs while Alex Lanza from Campbell's and Patrick O'Callaghan share practical applications. Let's start with Jacqui. Jacqui Drew: We really see treasury organizations being asked to do more with less. And so the way we are thinking about our product development is around how we can facilitate that. So that was a key theme that came out. The other is around leveraging AI. So obviously a hot topic we're seeing in our personal lives, but also in our the business world. And that came through and certainly can see advantages to how customers, for example, can reduce the amount of their time they're spending on their forecasting, but up to 90% leveraging AI in automated tools to do their forecasting. Ali Curi: Here's Alex Lanza from Campbell's. Alex Lanza: One of the sessions that was really interesting to hear was the session on cash forecasting with the Cigna treasury team. They had employed machine learning in generating their cash forecast, and I think that led to a lot of good interactive conversation with peers, sharing knowledge about what's worked well, what still remains a challenge in terms of adopting technology into people's processes. Ali Curi: Here's Patrick O'Callaghan. Patrick O'Callaghan: Applications for AI go deep and broad and clearly enabling corporate treasury practitioners to better forecast cash flows is a major topic within the industry. Ali Curi: Finally, collaboration driving change. Once again, KPMG's Dirk Bondzio, and Alex Lanza from Campbell's on Client Value Partnerships. Closing with ION's, Michael Kolman on transformation. Let's start with Dirk. Dirk Bondzio: First of all, you get quite deep insight into the product developments on ION side. So what will come in the new releases, what is available in existing releases that you might not have implemented so far, you can see a bit functionalities across different products. So getting these insights is the first very valuable takeaway from such an event. And the second one, maybe the even most important one is connecting with people. Ali Curi: Let's hear again from Alex. Alex Lanza: I think there's a ton of value to gain in strengthening your relationship with your peers across the industry, with your technology providers, and there was a ton of industry insights and trends that I think were well worth hearing about. Ali Curi: And to wrap things up, here's ION's Chief Product Officer, Michael Kolman. Michael Kolman: I think that the event every year, it's a lot of work that goes into it, but whenever you put a lot in, there's always a big return and that's what's great. It's really inspiring to be with the client community and to be with our colleagues and our partners at Client ConnectION. This year was quite interesting in terms of how conversations changed this year versus in prior years when we've done this. We're realizing that there are a number of new technologies that are materializing into practical solutions and applications in the way that we work. I think the impact it's having is it's bringing out really what the true meaning of transformation is. Where there's drastic change, there's material changes that are taking shape in how we approach operational efficiency. My favorite feedback actually is coming from our Tips and Tricks session that could have gone on for many hours across all the products that were, the tips and trick sessions were held. I think the community just wants to sit in a room with their laptops, have more time with some product experts while they're logged into the system and follow along and implement some of those tips and tricks right there on the spot. We are at a very interesting point in time, we're realizing that there are a number of new technologies that are materializing into practical solutions and applications in the way that we work. I think the impact it's having is it's bringing out what the true meaning of transformation is. Where there's drastic change, there's material changes that are taking shape in how we approach operational efficiency, actually just bring greater value overall to organizations. Ali Curi: And that brings us to the end of the special edition of Treasury ConversatION. From innovation and treasury technology to the power of collaboration across clients and partners, the conversation at this year's Treasury ConnectION Conference offered fresh insight, innovation, and for some inspiration. Thanks for listening. I'm Ali Curi, and we'll see you at the next conference.