Corporate Finance
Prepalyst has 22 treasury & capital markets interview questions with model answers, covering capital structure, covenant headroom, fx and interest rate hedging. Every question is graded on technical accuracy, completeness and interview communication. Practice is free.
A foundational treasury interview question because weekly liquidity is managed through a short-term forecast.
Walk me through how you would build a 13-week cash forecast for a company with seasonal sales. What makes it useful rather than merely accurate-looking?
Tests whether a candidate understands how multinational treasury teams make fragmented cash usable.
What is cash pooling? Explain the difference between physical sweeping and notional pooling, and when each can fail.
Treasury teams support contracts where counterparties want payment assurance without an immediate cash deposit.
Explain the difference between a letter of credit and a bank guarantee. Why might a supplier ask for one, and what should treasury check before issuing it?
Treasury teams must protect operating cash and derivative collateral from a bank failure.
Your company holds substantial deposits and derivatives with several banks. How would you manage bank counterparty risk?
A basic FX-risk distinction expected in multinational corporate treasury interviews.
Explain transaction, translation and economic FX exposure. Which should a corporate treasury team hedge?
Corporate treasury interviews use this to distinguish cheap funding from dependable liquidity.
What is commercial paper, and when should a company use it rather than a revolver or long-term debt?
A common first-round treasury question because account sprawl creates cost, fraud and visibility problems before it creates a funding problem.
A multinational has 480 bank accounts across 18 banks, many with small dormant balances. Why would treasury rationalise the structure, and how would you do it without disrupting the business?
A corporate treasury analyst is asked for a same-day liquidity recommendation before a potentially disruptive weekend.
It is 4:30pm Friday. Your treasurer asks whether to draw the revolver before the weekend after a customer payment slips. Work through the inbox updates and draft the recommendation for the CFO.
Tests whether a candidate sees refinancing as a portfolio-risk problem rather than just a cost-of-debt question.
A company has $3bn of bonds all maturing in the same year. Why is that risky, and how would you redesign its maturity profile?
The core treasury question, and it has no single right answer.
A company has $3bn of revenue and holds $800m of cash. Is that too much? How would you determine the right level?
A numerical treasury follow-up that tests whether a candidate hedges the economic net exposure rather than gross invoices.
A US parent expects to collect €12m from customers and pay €9m to suppliers in 90 days. The EUR/USD forward rate is 1.1000 dollars per euro. What is the net exposure, what forward should it enter, and what dollar amount…
A corporate treasury inbox escalation requiring prioritisation of cash, funding, and stakeholder actions.
You are the treasury analyst for an acquisitive public company after a delayed receivables cycle and an upcoming debt maturity tighten liquidity. Rank the actions as new information arrives, then send the treasurer a…
A recurring treasury committee decision.
A company has $2bn of floating rate debt. What proportion should be fixed, and how do you decide?
Tests whether a treasury candidate prioritises capital preservation and access over a marginal yield pickup.
Your company has $400m of surplus cash that it does not expect to need for nine months. How would you set the short-term investment policy?
A scenario question that tests liquidity judgement under a deteriorating market backdrop.
Your company has $150m of cash and a $500m undrawn revolver. Debt markets are becoming volatile, but you have no immediate maturity. Should you draw the revolver now?
A treasury scenario lab combining exposure math, hedge sizing and policy judgement.
Your company expects a EUR receivable in three months. Calculate the exposure and budget risk as certainty changes, then recommend a hedge that protects margin without over-hedging.
A standard numerical follow-up after discussing transaction exposure.
A US company must pay €10m in three months. The three-month EUR/USD forward rate is 1.0800 dollars per euro. How would you hedge it, what dollar cost do you lock, and what happens if spot settles at 1.1300?
Treasury candidates are expected to understand why an economically sensible hedge can create reported earnings volatility.
Why does hedge accounting matter to a treasury team? Explain the basic difference between a cash flow hedge and a fair value hedge.
A treasury case question that tests funding execution, rating protection and contingency planning at once.
Your company is signing a $2bn cash acquisition that closes in six months. How would you build the treasury funding plan before announcement?
Treasury interviews test whether you understand the rating as a constraint on strategy.
Your company is rated BBB and a proposed acquisition would push you to BBB−. Does it matter? What would you do?
Senior treasury interviews use this to test whether the candidate can turn a macro shock into concrete financing actions.
How would you stress test a company's liquidity, and what actions would you take if the downside case shows a shortfall in nine months?
A senior treasury judgement question on turning a large reported cash balance into usable capital without ignoring legal-entity constraints.
A group reports $1.0bn of cash, but $600m sits in foreign subsidiaries. The parent has a $250m maturity in eight months and is considering a share repurchase. How would you determine how much cash is genuinely available…
Write your answer, get it graded on technical accuracy, completeness and communication, and see exactly which mechanic you missed.
Firm names indicate where a question type is commonly reported in interviews. They are not sourced from, endorsed by, or affiliated with the firms named.