As treasury recruiters, we should know enough about corporate treasury to do intakes and screen candidates. Also, we should know the latest about what’s happening in the field of recruitment and so we read the publications of Geert-Jan Waasdorp of The Intelligence Group. I would like to share his latest, very interesting article and build the treasury connection.
By Pieter de Kiewit
Labour market pressures are not equally distributed among all employers.
I left a link if you want to read the full article but this is roughly what he says. There is a huge growth in people working since before covid. In parallel, there is a huge decline in active applicants. This pressure in the labour market is not evenly distributed among all employers. The ones that can find new employees can do so because of a strong employer brand and increased investments in own or external recruitment. Also, they are willing to decide quick and offer a better package.
So what does this mean if we project these findings on the corporate treasury labour market? My personal observation is that treasury staff is, on average, less driven by the company brand and more by the job content than candidates from other job types. We learned this working for clients like Tesla and Nike. Employer branding specifically towards treasurers would also be hard, I cannot envision a corporate recruiter promoting his manufacturing company at Eurofinance.
How to adapt?
The obvious low-hanging fruit is that the hiring manager, already at the start of the process, has to organise and choose a mindset in the following: being able to decide quickly, from fewer candidates than before, and offering more than the old standard. Even highly skilled recruiters sometimes underestimate these aspects over time.
The judgement if the internal recruitment team is equipped to tackle the search or whether an external one should do the job – we, Treasurer Search – I will not elaborate on here. What I do want to mention is another obvious source that can be opened. For some of us that are considered a paradigm shift: bringing treasury talent in from abroad, from within the EU or even sponsoring a work permit. I am aware that some of us consider this topic highly political. What I can tell, both from our own organisation, as well as from successful placements with our clients, that this can be a very successful solution. In the Dutch labour market already the majority of candidates placed by us is non-Dutch. This is not a plea to open the borders and not be critical. Regretfully we have examples where this solution did not lead to success as coming to The Netherlands can be hard for the new employee. But also locally found candidates can fail in their new job.
My conclusion is that indeed, the world is different, as is the labour market. And given current demographic developments I do not expect a shift back. Luckily there are solutions but we will have to accept the consequences and cannot lean back. Those that do will shrink and go extinct.
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Corporate treasury events come in many shapes and sizes. Earlier this year, I reported on my visit to Mannheim, in a few weeks you can expect a blog about Vienna, in this blog more about Copenhagen. I can already tell you that I liked the format and set-up of this event.
Corporate treasury markets will always be very niche. The event organiser, Insight Events, targeted a mainly Danish-Scandinavian audience. The sessions were all in English and the venue was the beautiful Hotel D’Angleterre in the heart of Copenhagen. It was also a conscious choice to keep the audience small, just under 150 and of high calibre: almost all treasurers, most of them quite senior and well informed. The consequence of this choice is also that there were no parallel sessions, all sessions were attended by the entire audience. During the break one could meet the various treasury service and product providers, including treasuryXL partner Nomentia.
Last year, I was asked to present on “how to get hired for your next treasury position” and had some questions during other sessions. Based on the bond we built, I was asked to be moderator/chairman of this year’s event. I thought it was a great gig, if it was appreciated, you just have to ask others.
The programme consisted of presentations and panel discussions led by Nordea. I was impressed by the level of quality offered. There were two macro-economic presentations, one by the Chief Economist of Nordea, a well-known TV personality in Denmark and the other by a senior director of EKF, the Danish export credit agency. Both gentlemen brought very thorough interesting insights but, given the current global developments, also a gloomy and dark future.
Another highlight was the input on ESG financing where treasurers and senior sustainability experts together informed the audience about the reality of this type of funding making in, at least for me, an inspiring way. In a cleverly constructed format, credit rating and Basel IV developments were linked in a session with the most questions from the audience.
In other, more traditional but also essential and informative sessions, building treasury teams, mergers and career development were on the agenda. And the non-treasury topic was brought up in a very entertaining way about a hacked company that does not want to pay a ransom. Relevant not only for treasurers and definitely food for thought.
Looking back, I see a very successful and high quality event. On a personal note, I always enjoy the international in my work. Me as a Dutchman, extrovert, direct and sometimes unintentionally rude, communicating with civilised, reserved Scandinavians who do not ask too many questions hopefully did not result in not being invited for next year. We shall see…..
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How should a CFO set their currency hedging strategy, to protect cash flows or to minimise P&L impact? In the fourth edition of CFO Perspectives, we’ll explore how senior finance professionals can choose the right path when it comes to hedging.
According to a recent HSBC report, the objectives of currency hedging are pretty extensive. While three-quarters of surveyed participants mention forecasted cash flows as an FX risk that their company hedges, 61% cite balance sheet items as the risk they hedge. Other participants say minimising the impact on consolidated earnings is one of their FX hedging objectives and KPIs.
The debate about whether to hedge cash flows or earnings —by removing the impact of accounting FX gains and losses— is as old as currency hedging itself. The two sides have powerful arguments in their favour.
The debate will likely never be settled entirely. No single approach for currency risk management is definitively better than another. Different opinions may reflect the type of business activity, the preferences of investors and even managers’ own biases.
The key step for any CFO looking to establish or revamp their business’s currency hedging program is to clarify what the firm is trying to achieve. Only with enough clarity on this matter can the dangers of ad hoc or unsystematic hedging be avoided.
So, where does that leave us? This blog brings some welcome news to beleaguered CFOs as they take sides. While nothing replaces clarity regarding the key objectives of currency management, technology now makes it possible for risk managers to:
Use a single set of software solutions to run cash flow and balance sheet FX hedging programs
Automate the time-consuming and resource-intensive process of implementing Hedge Accounting
This is big news indeed!
Practical steps on the journey to the FX hedging decision
While a certain amount of debate and discussion is unavoidable when deciding the goals of a firm’s FX hedging program, a number of practical steps can be followed to determine what should be hedged.
These steps share a central concern about protecting and enhancing the firm’s operating profit margins by giving particular importance to the pricing characteristics of each business division.
These steps include:
Steer clear of ad hoc or unsystematic hedging. This is a path to nowhere and should always be avoided.
Set the goals of your FX strategy, such as defending a campaign or budget rate, achieving a smooth hedged rate over time, hedging transaction exposure, or removing the impact of accounting FX gains and losses.
Based on these goals, define the best hedging program while imagining that infinite resources can be deployed. By doing so, CFOs can squarely focus on their FX goals.
Consider using Currency Management Automation to seamlessly execute all the steps of your program, breaking internal silos and ensuring connectivity with your own company systems (ERP, TMS).
Only then ‘prune’ the strategy and adjust it to the available resources, while measuring the impact —in terms of risk, costs and growth— of this adjustment.
Use technology to automate the process of compiling the required documentation for Hedge Accounting.
In other words: to set a currency hedging strategy you need to do away with outdated constraints. Technology is putting to rest the traditional view of currency management as a resource-intensive activity. So the message is: give priority to your FX goals, not to the resources currently at hand.
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In the third edition of CFO Perspectives, we’ll draw from our work with CFOs to explore five ways senior finance executives can increase the efficiency of treasury operations using purpose-built software solutions.
According to a recent HSBC report, as many as 81% of CFOs view the digitisation of treasury processes as an area of increasing importance. The same survey shows that technology has moved from ‘nice to have’ to a key differentiator for treasury.
The good news is that ‘special purpose’ technology exists that —working alongside your existing systems (TMS, ERP)— allows CFO’s and finance teams to dramatically boost the efficiency of treasury operations.
In this blog, we briefly present five areas of improvement across the FX workflow. Taken together, they present a unique opportunity for CFOs to turn the ‘digital treasury’ into a day-to-day reality, allowing members of the finance team to remove operational risks while devoting more time to value-adding tasks.
Improvements across the FX workflow
Currency management is a process undertaken in three different phases. In the pre-trade phase, FX-related pricing is managed alongside the crucially important collection and processing of the firm’s exposure. The trade phase, quite naturally, is concerned with trade execution, primarily through forward FX contracts. Finally, the post-trade phase covers accounting, reporting and analytics processes and the ‘cash flow moment’ of payments and collections.
In all of these phases, easy-to-install software solutions provide tangible improvements in terms of the efficiency of treasury operations.
These improvements include:
Improvement 1: Set a strong ‘FX rate feeder’
Pain point: Commercial teams often lack the capability to use the currency rates they need to price in a data-driven and efficient way. With favourable forward points, they could use the forward FX rate to price more competitively without hurting budgeted profit margins. With unfavourable forward points, pricing with the forward rate would allow them to remove excessive markups.
Improvement:Whatever the number of transactions involved, automated solutions to price with the required FX rate can be quickly scaled to all the required currencies, with the pricing markups per client segment and currency pair requested by commercial teams.
Improvement 2: Process all types of exposure
Pain point: When it comes to collecting the firm’s exposure to currency risk, most Treasury Management Systems (TMS) are designed with accounts receivables/payables in mind. While this works fine for balance sheet hedging, the focus on accounting items precludes the automation of cash flow hedging based on the exposure collected earlier — firm commitments and forecasts for budget periods.
Improvement:API-based solutions allow finance teams to automate the crucially important process of capturing the relevant type of exposure information and run a variety of cash flow hedging programs, including combinations of programs that require more than one type of exposure data.
Improvement 3: Connect the phases of the FX workflow
Pain point: The trade phase of the FX workflow is where most of the attention of CFOs has been placed, as Multi-Dealer Trading platforms such as 360T have reduced the cost of FX trading for corporations. But while the execution of trades is oftentimes manually initiated, most systems lack the capability to fully automate the process of triggering trades.
Improvement: What special-purpose software brings is the capability not only to automate the trade part of the workflow —via connectivity with Multi-Dealer platforms—but also to link it to the pre-trade phase as well by ensuring that trades are executed at the right moment in time.
Improvement 4: Automate Hedge Accounting
Pain point:Compiling the documentation required to perform Hedge Accounting can be a costly and time-consuming process, as hedge effectiveness is assessed in by comparing changes in the fair value of the hedged item to changes in the fair value of the corresponding derivative instrument. This forces companies to rely on highly skilled personnel to manually execute these tasks.
Improvement: The perfect end-to-end traceabilityof automated solutions makes it possible accounting team to automate the painstaking process of compiling all the required documentation to perform Hedge Accounting – allowing CFOs to cost-effectively provide more informative financial statements.
Improvement 5: Automate swap execution
Pain point:The process of adjusting the firm’s hedging position to the cash settlement of the underlying commercial exposure is one of the finance team’s most resource-intensive and error-prone tasks. It can require an enormous amount of ‘swapping’, particularly for companies that manage many commercial transactions in different currencies.
Improvement: Swap automation, a task that most TMS are unable to perform, is a key feature of Currency Management Automation software. Perfect traceability allows members of the finance team to automatically ‘draw on’ or ‘roll over’ existing forward positions while removing operational risks.
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Get updated, expand your network, and get inspiration for optimizing your work within the Cash & Treasury Management community.
The international program consists of selected and experienced speakers that have proven success within a certain area of Cash & Treasury as e.g., ESG, digitalization and Cash Management. The conference brings together a selected group of high-level senior treasurers from global organizations. Learn from your international peers and join the exclusive network. The event ensures you a full day of new knowledge and inspiration made for high level Treasurers. You get in-depth with the latest trends, valuable content from recognized speakers and extensive networking opportunities.
Among others, these topics have been selected for this year’s conference:
Sustainability financing – experiences one year down the road
Proprietary data driven cash flow forecasting model
How we integrated Nets Group Treasury in to Nexi Group treasury
Read the program and learn more about participation and sponsorship opportunities: cashandtreasury.dk
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When managing FX risk, CFOs could learn a lot from the world of asset management, where a revolution —led by indexing— has led to huge gains for investors. But how can you apply this to your business’s FX risk strategy? Watch below the video, or read the article!
In the second edition of CFO Perspectives, we’ll draw from our work with CFOs to explore the parallels between asset management and FX risk. We’ll break down the processes and tools used in asset management which can be applied to your currency management strategy, with some spectacular results.
Over the last couple of decades, the world of asset management —an industry with $100 trillion under management— has been turned upside down by a quite unexpected revolution: indexing. Instead of relying on managers’ capacity to time the markets, these firms have automated the selection of assets by quietly replicating stock indexes.
Can CFOs lead a comparable revolution in currency management?
The answer is: yes, they can! Let us see why and how they can accomplish that feat.
Having embraced indexing early on, two leading firms have assets under management north of $15 trillion. What’s more, they have achieved such a spectacular result with fees that are only a fraction of the fees charged by those who embrace speculation. They have saved, and they are still saving, hundreds of billions in costs to investors.
Similar changes may be afoot in the business world. The term ‘exposure under management’, now used by CFOs and treasurers, comes from the expression ‘assets under management’. More importantly, CFOs are eschewing speculation — just like their cousins in asset management.
When managing currency risk in the one-trillion-a-day forward currency market, CFOs are using more and more digitised, automated solutions.
A random walk for risk managers
Once in a while, a lack of currency hedging or even speculating on an FX market move can yield a positive outcome for CFOs. But luck will run out at some point. Sooner or later, blindfolded by overconfidence, ‘speculative’ risk managers flounder in their vain attempt to time currency markets — with disastrous consequences for themselves and their companies.
Like stock prices and the price of other financial assets, exchange rates are not predictable. They follow ‘a random walk’ in which the forecast is set equal to today’s exchange rate (the spot rate). Accordingly, investors —and risk managers— should embrace markets rather than trying to beat them.
This is the thrust of the analogy between the asset management revolution and the coming revolution in FX risk management, an event that will ultimately enhance the strategic role of CFOs.
5 asset management tactics CFOs should borrow when managing FX risk
Let us go beyond the surface and take a closer look at the key tools and processes used by the most successful companies in asset management. These processes provide a useful template for understanding how CFOs will use Currency Management Automation solutions to manage FX.
We can single out at least five main lines of action:
Avoid timing the market. Nine out of ten of the so-called geniuses of the investment world have been ‘destroyed’, in terms of comparative performance, by the more modest index funds. Adding insult to injury, the latter have charged only a fraction of the fees. The no-speculation mantra has proved immensely successful in asset management. If one accepts the view that currency markets also follow a ‘random walk’, then there is no reason to expect a different outcome when it comes to FX risk management.
Achieve operational brilliance. Indexed asset managers know that their success relies on engineering products that achieve operational brilliance by taking the risk of human error out of the equation. Just as indexing is measured by the tracking error between a fund’s rate of return and that of its benchmark, Currency Management Automation is at its core an engineering product that uses Application Programming Interfaces to achieve great precision in currency hedging while allowing managers to seamlessly run the entire FX workflow.
Implement scalable solutions. Successful asset managers use platforms that provide scalability, which makes it possible to quickly and cheaply enter new markets such as bonds, commodities and others, almost anywhere and in many currencies. The same idea applies to FX automation, as CFOs are set to implement scalable, data-driven pricing and hedging solutions to enter new markets, enabling their companies to buy and sell in more currencies — with FX risk systematically under control.
Innovate with a purpose. Indexing is one of the few truly beneficial inventions, a technology that has saved investors hundreds of billions of dollars. Similarly, the purpose of automated FX risk management is to allow firms to confidently ’embrace currencies’, reducing costs to customers and ultimately enhancing the value of the business. When it comes to innovation, purpose matters (see: “CFO Perspectives: 3 ways CFOs can use currencies to boost their business’ value”).
Keep a foot in more than one camp. The world’s largest asset manager keeps a foot in both camps: active asset management and index funds. An entire platform provides a menu from which clients can select whatever financial slice they might fancy. Likewise, CFOs have at their disposal an entire ‘family’ of automated hedging programs and combinations of programs, including balance sheet hedging and a variety of cash-flow hedging programs that respond to their firms’ goals and pricing parameters.
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Valutacoach en currency specialist Erna Erkens legt uit wat er met een yieldcurve of rentecurve wordt bedoeld. Grijp op je winst door er meer kennis over te vergaren. En nog belangrijker, wanneer je er goed naar moet kijken, en hoe!
Met de yieldcurve of rentecurve wordt bedoeld de rente van de korte naar de lange rente. In een grafiek wordt op de X-As (horizontaal) de looptijden van de rentes weergegeven. Het begint met de of 3 maands rente en het eindigt op de X-As met de 30 jaars rente. Op de Y-as staat het rentepercentage.
Vaak komt de yieldcurve of de rentecurve ter sprake bij vermogensbeheer. Het gaat dan meestal over obligaties. Vaak staatsobligaties. Maar wat betekent dit eigenlijk? Waarvoor wordt de yieldcurve gebruikt? In dit artikel leggen we uit wat de yieldcurve precies is, hoe je deze curve interpreteert en waarvoor het wordt gebruikt.
De yieldcurve kent meerdere benamingen. Hij wordt ook wel rentecurve of rentegrafiek genoemd. Het is een grafiek van de korte rente naar de lange rente. Vaak van staatsobligaties. In dat geval gaat het om de rendementen. Maar het komt ook ter sprake bij financieringen van bedrijven. Als je een keus moet maken voor een periode van de financiering is het een leidraad van hoe de rentetarieven per periode liggen.
Volgens het woordenboek betekent yield: opbrengst, productie, oogst, rendement. Het rendement op obligaties, inclusief de jaarlijkse rentebetalingen, de aankoopprijs en de tijd tot de afloop van de obligatie. Een obligatie met een hoge rente zal meer waard worden op het moment dat de marktrente zakt. Een obligatie met een hoge rente zal minder waard worden op het moment dat de marktrente verder stijgt. Dus soort van tegengesteld. Dat klinkt ingewikkeld en dat is het ook.
In de grafiek wordt het verloop van de rente van 3 maanden (korte rente) tot 30 jaar (lange rente) weergegeven. De horizontale X as geeft de looptijd aan en de verticale Y-as het rentepercentage.
Waar wordt een yieldcurve voor gebruikt?
Om te bepalen wat de contante waarde van een bedrag in de toekomst waard zal zijn gebruikt men de yieldcurve. Dit is een korte uitleg voor eigenlijk iets heel ingewikkelds waar we in dit artikel niet dieper op in gaan. Wil je hier meer over weten? Neem dan gerust even vrijblijvend contact met mij op, dan leg ik het graag uit.
De twee elementen in de curve worden afgeleid van de rente van de Centrale Banken. Zij bepalen de hoogte van de korte rentes. Voor de Eurolanden is dit de ECB, maar indirect ook onze eigen Centrale Bank, De Nederlandse Bank (DNB). Wij hebben ook nog onze eigen staatsleningen, maar natuurlijk worden die ook afgeleid van de rente van de ECB. Maar soms hebben sommige Eurolanden een groter risico. Zoals 10 jaar geleden Griekenland en nog meer Zuid Europese landen. Dan krijg je meer rente, maar loop je wel een groter risico dat je je geld niet terugkrijgt als je in deze leningen investeert of belegt. Daarnaast zegt de rentecurve of yieldcurve iets over de renteverwachting van de markt.
Welke soorten yieldcurve zijn er?
Hoe langer de looptijd van de rente, hoe moeilijker het is om de toekomst in te schatten van deze rente en hoe hoger de vergoeding zou moeten zijn om te compenseren voor dit hogere risico. Hoe korter de looptijd, zoals binnen een jaar, hoe kleiner de kans op grote verschillen in deze rente ten opzichte van de huidige situatie.
In een ‘normale rentecurve’ is de korte rente het laagst en stijgt de rente naarmate de looptijd langer wordt. Die stijgende rente voor langere looptijden komt in principe omdat jaarlijks in ieder geval de inflatie gecompenseerd wordt en door onzekerheid over de toekomstige renteontwikkeling.
De componenten in de rentecurve zijn de reële rente, de inflatieverwachting en de renterisicopremie
We kennen de volgende yieldcurves:
1. De vlakke yieldcurve
2. De normale yieldcurve
3. De omgekeerde of inverse yieldcurve
De vlakke yieldcurve
Als de rentes van de verschillende looptijden ongeveer gelijk zijn, spreken we van een vlakke rentecurve. Je ziet een vrijwel gelijke horizontale lijn in de grafiek.
Voor de banken is dit geen gunstige rentegrafiek. Zij verdienen meestal geld aan het kort aantrekken van spaargelden en het uitzetten van gelden voor een langere periode, bijvoorbeeld door hypotheken met een lange vast rente. Een vlakke yieldcurve komt ook niet vaak voor, meestal is er een normale rentestructuur waarbij de lange rentes hoger zijn dan de korte rentes. Als een vlakke rentecurve weer naar een normale rentecurve gaan met lage korte rentes en hogere lange rentes is dat een teken dat de economie weer aantrekt na economische krimp, waarbij een vlakke yieldcurve of zelfs een inverse yieldcurve geen uitzondering is.
De normale yieldcurve
Een normale yieldcurve ontstaat als de markt verwacht dat er inflatoire druk zal optreden. De rente is naast compensatie voor het risico ook voor de geldontwaarding. Om te zorgen dat de koopkracht aan het einde van de looptijd gelijk is zal degene die het geld uitleent compensatie willen.
Als inflatie stijgt kun je minder kopen voor 1 euro dan voorheen. Daardoor is er dan een hogere rente nodig. Op dat moment worden er lang(er)lopende obligaties verkocht. Dit zorgt weer voor een daling van de koersen van de obligaties en een verhoging van de rentevergoedingen ten opzichte van de koers. Het effectief rendement, de rente, zal dus stijgen. In de grafiek zie je dat de lijn linksonder begint en rechtsboven eindigt.
De omgekeerde of inverse yieldcurve
Bij deze yieldcurve zie je dat de lijn in de grafiek linksboven begint en rechtsonder eindigt. Dat betekent dat de korte rente hoger is dan de lange rente. Dit is wel een uitzonderlijke situatie en duurt meestal niet zo heel lang. Een langere looptijd heeft meer risico’s waardoor de rente vaak hoger is. Een omgekeerde rentecurve zie je vaak als de economische onzekerheid toeneemt. Er worden in de nabije toekomst economisch zwaardere tijden verwacht.
Zo gebruiken de banken de rentecurve
Bij een normale rentecurve kunnen de banken geld verdienen aan deze rentecurve. Zij geven consumenten rente voor hun spaargeld. Dat geld lenen zij vervolgens tegen een hogere rente uit aan anderen. Het verschil tussen de korte rente, de lange rente minus de gemaakte kosten is de winst voor de bank. Als de korte rente hoger is dan de lange rente lijdt de bank dus verlies met een negatieve marge. Dat was van 2013 tot 2021 een groot probleem voor de banken.
Welke factoren bepalen de rentestructuur?
Er zijn veel factoren die de rentestructuur bepalen. We bespreken hier de drie belangrijkste:
De verwachtte ontwikkeling van de rente:
Als er een rentestijging wordt verwacht kan de yieldcurve sneller gaan stijgen. Dit komt omdat langer lopende leningen worden verkocht door beleggers. Als men verwacht dat de rente zal dalen kan dat een vlakke of omgekeerde/ inverse yieldcurve tot gevolg hebben.
Liquiditeit:
Door de grote liquiditeit wordt de korte rente lager. Hiermee wordt het inflatierisico namelijk ook beperkt.
Kredietwaardigheid:
De uitgever van een obligatie is een debiteur. De kredietwaardigheid van de debiteur heeft invloed op een eventuele rente-opslag, (creditspread) die door de beleggers worden geëist. Nederland en Duitsland zijn landen die veiliger worden geacht dan bijvoorbeeld Griekenland. Griekenland zal daardoor waarschijnlijk een hogere rente moeten betalen voor hun staatsobligaties dan Nederland.
Hoe interpreteer je een yieldcurve?
Een rentecurve is echt een momentopname. Wat je vandaag ziet kan morgen weer heel anders zijn. Maar heel snel zal een rentecurve geen grote veranderingen laten zien. Het is niet zoals bij valutakoersen. Deskundigen kijken naar de ontwikkeling van de curve en anticiperen daarop met hun beleggingen en investeringen.
Als ondernemer kun je de yieldcurve gebruiken om een gevoel te krijgen van de economische ontwikkeling van de markt. Met een omgekeerde yieldcurve is de verwachting dat er economisch zware tijden aankomen. Vaak hebben we daarna te maken met een vlakke yieldcurve waarbij je ziet dat de economie weer langzaam aantrekt. Is de yieldcurve stijl met een lage korte rente en een hoge lange rente, dan zitten we in een groeiende economie met redelijk normale rentestanden.
https://treasuryxl.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/erna-200.png200200treasuryXLhttps://treasuryxl.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/treasuryXL-logo-300x56.pngtreasuryXL2022-07-25 07:00:152022-07-23 18:06:31What is a yield curve or interest rate curve? (Dutch Item)
The latest CompleXCountries report is based on two Treasury Peer Calls in which senior treasurers from Asia, the Americas and Europe discussed the latest bout of increased FX volatility, and the impact it is having on their hedging strategies. As to current volatility, some people are adjusting their strategies, but most prefer to stick with the approach which has already been defined.
FX – one of the biggest and most important challenges we all face. It has a direct impact on the business, and everyone has a view.
The calls (European morning and afternoon to accommodate Asia and the Americas) were to discuss the latest bout of increased FX volatility, and the impact it is having on people’s hedging strategies – if any. Unsurprisingly, it turned into a long discussion of the way different companies approach hedging. The report below is long and very varied – we managed to reduce it to 20 pages, but they are dense. As to current volatility, some people are adjusting their strategies, but most prefer to stick with the approach which has already been defined.
What is that approach? The participants came from a variety of different industries, and covered a broad range of different ways of handling the issue.
Everyone has a defined hedging approach, though most contain some degree of flexibility. So, if the approach is to hedge the next 6 months, for example, there may be leeway to go down to 4 months or up to 8.
Most people add their hedges via a layering approach, where they build up the hedge over time. This provides an average hedge rate, and avoids the risk of choosing a single point in time.
Everyone tries to match their hedges to the needs of the business. This involves co-ordinating with the business units to get their input on the ability to change prices, how long it takes to do so, etc.
Most companies have a centralised approach to hedging, but there is variety as to whether central treasury acts as and advisor, or as a decision maker. In most cases, this is decided by the company’s internal measurements and incentive system.
Several companies try to insulate the operating units from the effects of currency. This is done by various means: several participants operate re-invoicing centres, which invoice the operating entities in their own currencies, and manage the resulting exposures in the centre. One participant achieves the same result by levying a currency specific working capital charge on the operating units. The income from this charge is then used to pay for hedges – which may, or may not, actually be taken out.
In these cases, the centre usually operates as a profit centre – but with strong risk management disciplines to contain the danger of positions getting out of control.
One other approach is to fix a budget exchange rate for the coming year, and try to lock that in via hedges. There was a discussion as to whether this suits all businesses.
Most participants use forwards for hedging, with the choice of deliverable or NDF varying from one country to another. Several use options, though cost and accounting complexity were obstacles.
One participant has an approach which is built entirely around options, including a sophisticated trading strategy to reduce the cost of what they view simply as an insurance policy, like any other. This company is also very opportunistic, and will be active or inactive in the market according to their view of current pricing. This company is also private, and family owned, so they have a higher tolerance for earnings volatility than most – and they are not concerned about quarterly earnings announcements. They also have a relatively high margin business.
In this company, as in all others, this strategy is only possible because it has the understanding and buy-in of the management and the operating units. Every participant mentioned this as being key for success.
Generally, the percentage of hedging is fixed by policy. However, most participants exercise some judgement, based on the cost of hedging. This is particularly relevant for some emerging market countries, such as Brazil, Argentina and many African countries. The judgement as to what constitutes a hedge which is too expensive was often empirical, but the currencies which were left unhedged usually did not represent a significant exposure for the company.
Most participants prioritise balance sheet hedging over cash flow hedging, but some take the opposite approach. In all cases, the accounting treatment is a significant factor in determining the approach.
Bottom line: hedging and managing currency is one of the key competences of the treasurer. For many years to come, it will continue to be one of the areas where there is the biggest variation in approaches – and endless debates. If you have an approach which is well defined and which has been fully discussed with the business, there should not be any need to change it during a period of volatility – though it can be an excellent stress test!
[The full report can be downloaded FREE by corporate treasury practitioners, please Log in to your account to download (if you receive emails from us – use your email address to retrieve your password), if setting up a new account, please ask for the FX report in the comments and ComplexCountries will send you a copy]
https://treasuryxl.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/cxc-200-13e.png200200treasuryXLhttps://treasuryxl.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/treasuryXL-logo-300x56.pngtreasuryXL2022-07-13 07:00:582022-07-08 09:08:17Approaches to FX Volatility
As a CFO, you are aware of the benefits of FX hedging for treasury. However, are you also aware of the macro-level advantages for your company and its value?
A new CurrencyCast series has just been introduced by Kantox. They examine five ways that efficient currency management may benefit your entire business in the first episode of their CFO Edition miniseries, including how to incorporate it into your strategy and how to decrease cash flow fluctuation. Watch below the video or read the corresponding blog.
In the first edition of CFO Perspectives, we’ll draw from our work with CFOs to explore three ways senior finance executives can make currency management a winning growth and cost-saving strategy for their business.
Looking at the concerns expressed by CFOs in most risk management surveys, a number of familiar themes seem to reoccur: the importance of cash flow forecasting and monitoring, the centrality of FX risk management and the ongoing digitisation of treasury processes
Yet, this picture is far from complete.
Ultimately, among the tasks assigned to CFOs, there is the need to make a contribution toward enhancing the value of the business. But what is the role —if any— played by currency management in that regard? Answering this question allows us to single out three strategic contributions of currency management that CFOs should prioritise.
Value and FX hedging: time for a reassessment
Does currency management create value? The traditional view has been ambivalent: a ‘glass half full, half empty’ kind of appraisal. While the benefits of hedging FX have never been in dispute, the problem lies with the perceived high costs of currency management.
This is precisely where things are changing—and quite fast. Digital, API-based technology is putting to rest the notion that currency management is always a costly, resource-intensive task. Meanwhile, Multi-Dealer Platforms (MDPs) such as 360T, embedded in these solutions, sharply reduce trading costs.
CFOs: three strategic contributions of currency management
(1) Create opportunities for growth
Feeling concerned about exchange rate risk, managers may neglect the growth opportunities that come from ‘embracing currencies’. Buying and selling in more currencies allow firms to capture FX markups on the selling side while avoiding markups on the contracting side. Two examples will suffice:
(a) On the selling side: In e-commerce setups, currencies can be leveraged to increase direct, high-margin sales on company websites with many payment methods. Multi-currency pricing is the secret weapon for reducing cart abandonment, which still stands at about 77% globally.
(b) On the buying side: Buying in the currency of their suppliers allows firms to (1) Avoid inflated prices charged by suppliers who seek to manage their own FX risk; (2) Widen the range of potential suppliers by putting them in competition; (3) Obtain extended paying terms.
By taking FX risk out of the picture, currency management enables firms to reap these and other margin-boosting benefits of using more currencies in their day-to-day business operations. Ultimately, it is about removing the disincentives that prevent firms from ‘embracing currencies’.
(2) Provide more informative financial statements
Informative financial statements allow investors to assess the quality of management by removing noise from the process. To the extent that the variability in net income is perceived as a measure of management quality, effective currency hedging creates a sense of discipline in the eyes of investors.
The good news for CFOs is that technology is making great strides in cost-effectively managing the accounting-related aspects of currency management. Here are two examples:
Traceability and Hedge Accounting. The perfect end-to-end traceability made possible by automated solutions eases the costly and time-consuming process of compiling the required documentation for Hedge Accounting.
(3) Lower the cost of capital
Companies can reduce cash flow variability thanks to a family of automated hedging programs and combinations of hedging programs, including layered hedging programs that make it possible to maintain steady prices in the face of adverse currency fluctuations.
In challenging times, when the availability of external financing at a reasonable cost is scarce —an all too common occurrence in years of pandemics and wars—reduced cash flow variability makes it possible for companies to execute their business plans and meet all cash commitments.
An impaired capacity to raise financing has implications in terms of valuation, especially for smaller businesses. This ‘cost’ has been variously measured, with some estimations ranging from 20% to 40% of firm value. Currency management enhances the capacity to raise finance and, by extension, lowers the cost of capital and boosts firm valuation.
A wide range of opportunities to create value
We have singled out three major contributions of currency management in terms of creating value for the business: (1) stimulating growth while protecting and enhancing profit margins; (2) lowering the variability of cash flows; (3) presenting more informative financial statements. We can mention even more benefits:
Taxation is optimised as smoother earnings reduce the tax burden when higher levels of profits are taxed at a higher rate.
Capital efficiency is raised when pricing with the FX rate improves the firm’s competitive position without hurting budgeted profit margins.
While most of these advantages have been known by CFOs for many years, there is a new factor to consider: they can be implemented with Currency Management Automation solutions that remove most of the resource-consuming, repetitive and low-value tasks performed by the finance team, eliminating unnecessary operational risks along the way.
With an added bonus: by leveraging currencies, CFOs have the opportunity to take decisive steps in terms of digitisation. According to a recent HSBC survey, digitisation is seen as the most positive factor by 84% of CFOs overall, as they expect investments in digital technology to have a “positive impact on their business”, with more than half of them expecting it to give the business model “a large boost”.
https://treasuryxl.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/kantox-cfo-200.png200200treasuryXLhttps://treasuryxl.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/treasuryXL-logo-300x56.pngtreasuryXL2022-07-05 07:00:052023-03-03 12:11:13CFO Perspectives: 3 ways CFOs can use currencies to boost their business’s value
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