What a Well-Run Cross-Border Liquidity Structure Looks Like in 2026

Quick Summary

Mali Bartlett, Managing Director, Liquidity & Account Solutions at J.P. Morgan Payments, says a well-run treasury in 2026 has confident, connected visibility across entities, accounts and currencies, and uses automation rather than manually stitching together data from many systems. Each morning, the team can see where liquidity is concentrated, where funding needs are emerging and what to do about it, with tools such as programmable liquidity and event-triggered sweeps moving cash on information and guardrails rather than the calendar.

What does a well-run cross-border liquidity structure look like in 2026?

Bartlett says it starts with confidence in visibility across entities, accounts and currencies. That is increasingly achievable because technology can connect liquidity information across a global organisation in a way that was not possible years ago.

For treasurers, the practical difference is a morning routine built around a connected view of liquidity: where it is concentrated, where funding needs are emerging and which actions to take.

How has the standard changed?

Reflecting on her own career, Bartlett recalls setting up liquidity structures that focused on the end of day and understanding what had happened. Today, she says, that is simply not good enough.

Stitching together data from ten different systems by hand is being replaced by routines that use automation to manage liquidity. For a treasurer operating in 2026, she calls that fundamental and critical.

What is programmable liquidity?

Bartlett gives programmable liquidity as an example of what J.P. Morgan has developed, such as an event-triggered sweep. In that model, movement of cash is driven by information and guardrails, not just by the calendar and the time of day.

The outcome, she says, is treasurers who are more proactive and less reactive in their day.

FF NEWS TAKE:

The test Bartlett sets is simple: does your treasury team start the day with a picture, or spend the morning building one? Moving from end-of-day snapshots to information-driven automation is the shift worth watching in corporate treasury. Event-triggered sweeps show what that looks like in practice: cash that moves because something happened, not because a clock struck.