In 2025, CFOs and treasurers across Asia continue to navigate an increasingly complex and volatile financial landscape. Slowing regional growth, rising trade tensions, and shifts in capital flows are reshaping traditional financial strategies.

At the same time, inflationary pressures, tightening liquidity, and interest rate uncertainties are compounding internal cost challenges. Leaders are also grappling with fast-evolving regulatory demands, geopolitical instability, cybersecurity threats, and the urgent need to modernize through artificial intelligence and digital transformation.

Against this backdrop, the role of treasury management professionals is expanding beyond finance, demanding agility, resilience, and strategic foresight to manage risk and drive sustainable growth.

To better understand the thinking of treasury management professionals, Asset Benchmark Research ( ABR ), via its annual Treasury Review 2025 ( TR 2025 ), looked into how companies are approaching risk management today.

When it came to financial risks, foreign exchange risk was top of mind for CFOs and treasurers, followed by compliance risk and interest rate risk. Understandably, foreign exchange risk is a principal concern because of Asia’s heavy reliance on global trade, multinational operations, and capital flows.

Many Asian economies are export-driven, making them vulnerable to currency fluctuations that can impact export competitiveness and import costs. Additionally, geopolitical tensions, central bank policies, and global economic shifts exacerbate FX volatility.  Asked how TR 2025 respondents would address concerns around foreign exchange risks, they cited the use of such tools as forward contracts/swaps, currency risk sharing, and currency options.

Looking for alternatives

The recent weakening of the US dollar has led CFOs and treasurers in Asia to seek alternative currencies for trade and reserves. As inflation and interest rate concerns in the US continue, the dollar’s value has fluctuated, prompting companies to diversify away from the currency. China’s push to internationalize the renminbi and regional currency agreements in Southeast Asia are gaining traction.

When it came to renminbi usage for non-mainland Chinese respondents, the three top renminbi products cited were cross-border payments and remittances, trade finance services, and foreign exchange transactions.

The majority of respondents ( 61% ) held neutral expectations regarding the renminbi's internationalization, while another 37% were optimistic about developments involving the Chinese currency.

As in similar years, TR 2025 asked China-based companies about their main motivations for establishing offshore treasury centres, and respondents cited factors such as increased overseas business and tax incentives as key considerations for further expansion.

These were some of the observations we gathered from ABR’s annual TR 2025, which engaged with over 600 treasury management professionals, including CFOs and treasurers, across the region in early 2025 on how they view the current trends shaping finance/treasury.

The TR 2025 findings presented here are just the tip of the iceberg of the many insights uncovered by Asset Benchmark Research. Curious to see more insights? Be sure to see a comprehensive overview of our results in the ninth edition of our magazine.

This concludes our TR 2025 web series. Be sure to check out our previous articles in our online TR 2025 series with part 1 here, part 2 here and part 3 here.