Laurel Egan Kenny

Laurel Egan Kenny
Title: President, Turningpoint Communications
Age: 44
Experience: 19 years, treasury management and related fields

Supporting the collections, disbursements, concentration, investment and funding activities of client companies are all under the purview of a bank’s treasury management department, a sector that may help banks diversify their revenue streams and bring in long-term, recurring revenue. For nearly a decade, Laurel Egan Kenny, founder and president of Turningpoint Communications, has been helping banks and the fintech companies that support them in the treasury space market their products to banks, as well as helping banks of all sizes grow and differentiate their treasury business. After leading marketing at State Street and what is now Santander in its treasury management and global trade divisions, Egan Kenny went out on her own. While every financial institution offers business banking solutions in one way or another, many smaller banks are following the larger players and investing in the creation or growth of their own treasury management divisions, an idea Egan Kenny believes is now crucial to a bank’s success.

Q: What is treasury management?

A: This is a question I get asked at least once a day. No one knows what it is, but every company needs it and does it in some form or another. Whether you own a small business or a large corporation, someone is performing treasury-related functions: collecting payments for products or services, disbursing money to pay for the costs of goods sold and concentrating funds or knowing one’s cash position. At the end of the day, week, quarter, year, hopefully, the business is taking in more revenue than they pay out. Treasury management provides an automated means of working capital, or having just the right amount of cash on hand in the right currency at the right time.

If a company comes up short on cash, treasury management provides automated means of bringing in funds from an established loan or line of credit. But if the company has more money than it needs at that moment, treasury solutions will automate investments, so the company can make money on idle funds. Treasury management can help clients save money and time through automation, increased efficiency, employee productivity and risk management. It also helps through mitigating fraud, speeding up collections of funds and slowing down payables to keep cash on hand longer.

Q: What do you like about working in communications with financial institutions, specifically treasury management?

A: I have been in this space since 1998, but treasury management has been around since the 1970s, very much behind the scenes. Economic pressures and environmental factors have converged making now the time for treasury management to come out of hiding and shine – that’s my role.

It’s a very small world and there are a lot of amazing people around the country in this industry, whom I consider to be my mentors. It is no accident that this industry is built on trust and relationships. This business is very sticky; people will follow people they know and trust. They want to know the person on other side of the line is someone they can trust.

Now that I am in a position to be a mentor and industry champion, I lend my rare communications talents to advocate for the industry and the companies and people in this industry. While it’s not the sexiest area of financial services, it is foundational to any company.

And deploying treasury management can truly make or break the future of a bank because it provides the ability to diversify revenue streams and bring in fee-based versus interest revenue. As a marketing person, I am here to advocate for and promote the industry and those whom contribute to their talents to it.

Q: What is one of the biggest challenges of spreading awareness of treasury management?

A: I come at this in a very different way than most people in industry. I am helping people that are leaders in a company promote themselves so they can grow and differentiate their business. Treasury management officers need to differentiate and brand themselves in a new way if they are to grow – often people continue to do business in the same old way. In today’s environment, attention spans are shorter. The world has changed in the last 10 years and the way sales are perceived is very different. Education and relationships are the new form of sales.

I train bankers how to better sell treasury management by being a trust advisor. That often is on an individualized basis through open trainings or through a solutions provider like COCC or FIS, but I will also go into banks and customize training according to a bank’s culture. We all need to get back to basics by building relationships, trust and selling yourself in a way that positions you as thought leader. If you can quantify the value you will bring, how can you possibly lose the sale?

Q: Why is it a good idea for smaller banks to launch treasury management departments?

A: Sophisticated treasury management systems used to be proprietary to the biggest banks. Now even banks with less than a billion dollars in assets can offer treasury management solutions if their business warranted because there are fintech companies who provide sophisticated customizable services for a fee. Banks can purchase tiered solutions at the volumes they need and turn on or off different functions depending on the needs of their clients.

Bankers and banks need to remember that their services are valuable. I often hear banks waive treasury management fees to attract the lending side. This is backward. Treasury management can be a differentiator for smaller banks and may even drive new business, if sold and implemented correctly. Treasury management revenues are often long-term revenue streams because the solutions are at the backbone to most companies’ operations, making it harder to unravel. Not that clients want to leave, because the people who sell the services are relationship-focused, trusted advisors. Banks like this because it secures and deepens client relationships.

Bankers need to reinforce that they are in business to do business and be able to quantify time and money savings through automation, timing of payments, fraud mitigation, employee productivity and other efficiencies. For a bank, it can be one of the most profitable components of a client relationship. Bankers can go out and sell treasury solutions and then bring in lending if needed later.

Five Reasons Banks Should Invest In Treasury Management Divisions:

1. Deliver annuity-style, fee-based and volume-driven income to the bottom line.
2. Deepen penetration: More revenue and greater profitability per client.
3. Long-term relationships equal long-term revenue streams.
4. Add client value through time and money savings, as well as increased productivity, efficiency and risk mitigation.
5. Predictable expenses through sophisticated, customizable tools outsourced from fintech companies.