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When managing foreign currencies there is an underlying FX risk that Treasurers may not see, the credit risk. In this week’s episode of CurrencyCast, Agustin Mackinlay explains how to mitigate this risk.
Disclaimer: This information is being shared for informational purposes only and was originally published by Kantox (Source)
Embrace currencies to protect your capital, maintain your cash flow, secure your earnings and access better financing! Let’s find out how to mitigate the consequences of the underlying FX risk, the credit risk.
When working with foreign currencies, CFOs and treasurers have the mission to try to reduce the FX risk as much as they can. But there is an underlying currency risk that they could be missing, credit risk.
In this week’s episode of CurrencyCast, we shared the secrets to mitigating credit risk by embracing currencies. Now, we will explain in detail what are the key actions that involve eliminating this risk.
Understanding credit risk in currency management
There is an underlying currency risk that you are probably not seeing and could eliminate easily just by following a simple rule in your currency management strategy, embracing currencies.
This is the credit risk or, more precisely, the risk in account receivables when customers need to settle their bills in a different currency than their own.
Why embracing currencies is the secret to tackle credit risk
What do we mean by embracing currencies? There are many benefits that treasurers and CFOs can gain from implementing a multi currency approach to their FX strategy.
Some of them include the ability to price more competitively or boost your company’s profit margins just by operating with multiple currencies. But there is one which is helping companies drastically reduce currency risk, by uncovering the underlying credit risk.
We’ll reveal the advantages of taking ownership of the underlying FX risk so that you can expand your business with full confidence.
Uncovering the underlying credit risk
If you are selling in Emerging Markets like Brazil or Turkey but using only one currency like EUR or USD, you might be tempted to think that you have solved the currency risk problem.
But that’s an illusion: the underlying currency risk is still very much there. By urging customers to use a currency that is foreign to them, you are in effect transferring that risk onto their shoulders.
In the event of a sharp devaluation of the local currency, they might feel inclined to wait for a better exchange before settling their bills. In other words, your customers would speculate in FX markets with your firm’s money.
We’ve seen that phenomenon at play after the pandemic, both in Latin America and Eastern Europe. As a treasurer or CFO, you don’t want to be in that position.
Taking ownership of the underlying FX risk
In order to avoid your client’s FX risk from turning into your own credit risk, the solution is to sell in the currency of your customers while taking care of the underlying FX risk. Needless to say, this presupposes a strong, automated currency cash flow hedging program.
Such programs include: hedging firm sales/purchase orders as they materialise, hedging forecasted exposures for one or more campaign/budget periods, or a combination of these, with tools that provide visibility over the exposure throughout.
Advantages of owning the currency risk
Now you know the importance of seeing there is another added layer to your currency risk that you could be missing. It is time to consider the advantages that would flow from taking full ownership of the underlying currency risk:
Capitalprotection. You are protecting your firm’s capital against catastrophic loss while managing reputational risk at the same time
Cost of capital. You are reducing the cost of trade credit insurance if you use it, slashing lousy debt reserves and freeing up capital
Performance. You are securing company earnings while maintaining cash flow
Commercialexpansion. You are in a position to expand sales with confidence, gaining market share and/or targeting new customers
Finding a solution to mitigate the risk efficiently
After uncovering the underlying FX risk, you need a solution to mitigate the credit risk.
A currency management automation solution could be the answer for companies that want to embrace currencies. This type of tool can streamline your currency management strategy and automate your entire FX workflow to reduce FX risk, including the ‘hidden’ credit risk.
As we mentioned before in this episode of CurrencyCast, we live in a multi-currency world where businesses can take advantage of the profit margin-enhancing benefits of selling in many currencies, like monetising existing FX markups or driving high-margin sales to company websites.
Thanks to automation, these advantages far outweigh the perceived inconveniences and costs of managing the underlying FX risk. And, in the current scenario of uncertainty, you get an additional and very attractive bonus: less credit risk in your commercial operations. That’s quite a lot!
https://treasuryxl.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/ep-3-kantox-200.png200200treasuryXLhttps://treasuryxl.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/treasuryXL-logo-300x56.pngtreasuryXL2023-02-09 07:00:222023-03-03 12:06:25How to mitigate credit risk
Join senior treasury peers on March 7th in London at EuroFinance’s 10th annual Effective Finance & Treasury in Africa. Understand changing developments and the unique opportunities and challenges of doing business in this dynamic region.
This year’s speaker line-up includes experienced treasurers – all active in African markets – including:
● Edward Collis, Treasurer, Save the Children
● Neiciriany Mata, Head of finance, Angola Cables
● Marta de Teresa, Group treasurer, Maxamcorp
● Chigbo Enenmo, Finance and treasury manager, Nigeria LNG
● Folake Fawibe, Integrated business service lead, Danone, Southern Africa
● Jan Beukes, Group treasurer, MultiChoice Group
They will discuss important topics including cash and FX, payments, liquidity and financing, digital transformation, share success stories and provide practical guidance on how to optimise your treasury operation for growth.
For the full agenda and to register, please visitt this link.
Quote discount code MKTG/TXL10 for an exclusive 10% discount for TreasuryXL readers.
If you have any questions, you can contact the EuroFinance team directly at [email protected].
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We’re living in a multicurrency world and we’re multicurrency treasurers. You can get a head start on your competitors by simply understanding the benefits of operating with multiple currencies. Start leveraging the multicurrency world we’re in.
Disclaimer: This information is being shared for informational purposes only and was originally published by Kantox (Source)
With so many benefits to operating with the different foreign currencies out there, it is crazy to think that some companies are not taking advantage of this.
In this week’s episode of CurrencyCast we discussed why businesses should consider implementing a multicurrency approach to their FX risk strategy. This article will take a deeper dive into the benefits and give you some insight into how to be a more strategic treasurer.
Why we are in a multi-currency world
In this episode, we analyse a development that many find surprising, but that stands at the core of our thinking at Kantox: the multi-currency world. The prevailing view of a world dominated by a handful of currencies like the dollar and the euro is being challenged as we speak.
We’ll reveal how you can take advantage of the benefits that lie ahead in this multi-currency world and contribute to enhancing your profit margins.
How is technology pushing forward a multi-currency world
The currencies of a number of small, but well-managed economies (together with the natural rise of CNY) are gaining in importance: SEK, NOK, CAD, AUD, NZD, SGD and KRW among others.
The change is not driven in a top-down manner by macroeconomic forces. Instead, it reflects a bottom-up and microeconomic phenomenon, made possible by technology.
Today’s multi-currency world is mostly driven by corporate treasurers taking advantage of Multi Dealer Platforms such as 360T. These platforms have led to a dramatic compression of spreads, increasing liquidity beyond the major currency pairs and reducing the network effects of the USD.
For example, whereas a CAD-MXN transaction used to require two trades involving USD and CAD on the one hand, and USD and MXN on the other, now CAD-MXN can be directly and competitively traded on Multi-Dealer Platforms.
Advantages of the multi-currency world
Back to the issue of the multi-currency world. Let me mention some of the benefits of selling in more currencies (we discussed the advantages on the contracting side earlier on):
FX markups. With multi-currency pricing, businesses can monetise existing FX markups.
High-margin sales. Companies can drive direct, high-margin sales on company websites with many different payment methods.
Reduced cart abandonment. Online businesses can deploy multi-currency pricing as their secret weapon to reduce cart abandonment.
Let’s take this example if you are a company operating with imports from a foreign country there could be some hesitation regarding whether to work with the local currency or not. In certain cases, using the local currency translates into better deals from a commercial perspective, as FX markups from suppliers are avoided. Also, firms get access to a wider range of suppliers.
From a liquidity management perspective, you may benefit from extended paying terms as well giving you more runway to finalise your sales. Finally, from a strictly financial perspective, there could be a wider forward discount of currency pairs which is a way to generate more positive forward points when hedging.
A strategic issue in the age of innovation
By taking FX risk out of the picture, you put your business in a position to confidently use more currencies in day-to-day operations. Additionally, if you then implement the best automation solution that will help you remove time-consuming and error-prone tasks, you could have a strong currency management strategy that becomes a great strategic asset.
On top of that, there are other bonuses to implementing technology:
Optimisation of interest rate differentials between currencies
More time to devote to value-adding tasks
Openness to further automation
Wrap up
Now you know all the benefits of a multicurrency world for currency managers. By empowering commercial teams to always buy and sell in the most profitable currency, the finance team acts as a strategic business enabler within the enterprise. That is the promise of the multi-currency world that is taking shape as we speak.
You are now prepared to face the future of currency management and reap all the benefits of the multiple currencies available. But to keep the ball rolling and make the most of foreign currencies, you need a tool that allows you to have full control of your FX exposure.
https://treasuryxl.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/ep-2-200.png200200treasuryXLhttps://treasuryxl.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/treasuryXL-logo-300x56.pngtreasuryXL2023-02-03 10:19:162023-03-03 12:06:39Uncovering the benefits of a multicurrency world
This call took place five days after FTX filed for bankruptcy. However our discussion did not dwell on crypto as an investment (We haven’t found a treasurer who would). The interest for treasurers is to help their companies understand the business opportunities of the metaverse, and that isn’t going away.
According to Gartner,’ [https://www.gartner.com/en/articles/what-is-a-metaverse] by 2026, 25% of people will spend at least one hour per day in a metaverse for work, shopping, education, social media and/or entertainment’, and…’A metaverse is not device-independent, nor owned by a single vendor. It is an independent virtual economy, enabled by digital currencies and non-fungible tokens (NFTs).’
So it’s no surprise that many companies are developing strategies to capitalise on what could be a massive business opportunity. Participants in this call comprised treasurers representing companies at different stages of this journey, all facing the challenge that the regulatory and financial infrastructure available is at an early stage of evolution.
About half of the participants are still investigating the use of crypto and exploring how it works in case it does evolve within their businesses, but still not necessarily wanting to accept crypto or handle crypto within treasury operations.
Risk management to enable safe use in Corporate Treasury remains paramount and it isn’t easy.
We are seeing continued evolution around the NFT space and using crypto for settlement. But it continues to be quite limited.
Accounting requirements for how crypto currencies are handled are still not clear and not necessarily sustainable for the future. Regulations are going to evolve.
It is fascinating to hear, for the first time, crypto working capital is being used to match crypto receivables to payables in certain types of crypto currencies, e.g. Ether.
In the last 12 months companies have started to buy land in the metaverse in order to understand how it works as a marketing tool.
Selecting crypto currency platforms is challenging and KYC with some is a (reassuringly) painful experience. The providers discussed in this report include: Etherium, Coinbase, Mt Pelerin, Bit Panda and Anchorage.
For the most part, banks are watching the space and have yet to come up with solutions for corporates and CBDCs are at an early stage, but one thing we can be sure of is that there is a lot more to come on this topic.
Crypto has clearly not gone away for corporate treasurers and I’m certain we’ll see further uses going forward. There is a huge amount of detail in this report, which is essential reading for any treasurer wishing to understand the challenges or benchmark their processes.
Acces to the full report is only available to subscribers to “Treasury Practice”. If you would like to request a subscription to this topic, please message [email protected].
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A recent white paper from Refinitiv – produced in collaboration with global consultancy, FINTRAIL – discusses the key elements currently shaping the evolving fintech space and the key trends that will be shaping the fintech landscape in 2023.
New findings from Refinitiv and FINTRAIL, based on interviews with experts from different fintechs across a range of geographies, have identified five key factors that are shaping fintechs today.
The white paper identified that the primary factors shaping fintech in 2022 were technology, data, talent, governance and efficiency, and it will continue in 2023.
Fintechs also have to keep tight control of the anti-money laundering (AML) processes to protect against widespread illicit activity and ensure regulatory compliance.
The fintech industry is one of dynamism and innovation; a space where agile players harness new technology and challenge the status quo of the traditional financial services industry every day.
Undoubtedly, this delivers substantial opportunity for those involved in the sector, but at the same time, financial criminals are similarly leveraging technology and using advancements to devise new ways to further their illicit activities.
In this fast-paced space, characterised by evolution and a growing financial crime threat, what key elements are at play and what factors have shaped and defined the industry in 2022, and will continue to do so in 2023?
Findings from Refinitiv and FINTRAIL, based on interviews with experts from different fintechs across a range of geographies, have identified five key factors that are shaping fintechs today.
Five factors shaping fintechs today
Technology
The fintechs we spoke to stress that the right technology can make all the difference when it comes to managing financial crime, with some describing machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI) as “indispensable tools”.
This view is in line with the recommendations of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF).
Leading technology needs trusted, comprehensive data, but fintechs highlight that striking a balance is key. Requiring too much information can damage the customer experience, while not enough leaves fintechs vulnerable to financial crime.
Collecting the right data – and the right amount of data – and then building a complete picture of risk is key to the combined fintech goals of maximising efficiency, keeping customers happy and protecting against financial crime.
Talent
Technology and data are critical in managing financial crime threats, but a third and equally critical element is invaluable human expertise. The right people across difference disciplines can make all the difference.
Those we interviewed said that engineers and data scientists are key, and further that the compliance profession is considered “recession-proof” – upskilling compliance team members should be a key priority for those in the sector.
Interviewees also highlighted that fintechs should concentrate on attracting and retaining key staff, but should also consider outsourced solutions for additional support and expertise.
Governance
Effective governance is a key consideration for fintechs as they grow and evolve. The nature of the industry and the rapid growth trajectories often followed by sector participants mean that effective AML controls and good governance need due attention.
Plus, fintechs agree that governance models should not be static – they need to adapt over time.
Efficiency
Efficiencies are increasing in the industry, with new technology now enabling fintechs to integrate specific data points alongside behavioural biometrics to help them spot suspicious activity.
For example, device identification data can identify if an account is accessed from a new device and this can be compared to a client’s history.
To further boost efficiencies, fintechs say that adopting a dynamic approach to risk is key and avoids wasting often scarce resources.
Discover more about our KYC and anti-money laundering solutions for the fintech industry
Keeping pace with changes in fintech
Fintechs can expect these top trends to continue in the year ahead and should especially take note of the powerful combination of tech, data and human expertise that are not only shaping the sector, but can enable better compliance and good governance, while boosting efficiencies.
As the industry continues to grow and develop at pace, many players are rightly concerned with ensuring an engaging and positive customer experience that offers connectivity and seamless interaction. They must, however, also keep tight control of the AML processes they will need to protect against widespread illicit activity and ensure regulatory compliance.
If we look back at the economic landscape of last year, treasurers and CFOs have been dealing with risky scenarios for a while. But is the future as dark as some say? Our latest episode of CurrencyCast featured the treasury trends for 2023. In this article, we will take a deep dive into those trends and give you some tips on how to tackle the challenges in this volatile landscape.
Treasury trends for 2023
Consultants and pundits are busy laying out scary scenarios for 2023. However, the future is uncertain so let’s not waste time in futurology trying to predict what’s coming.
Instead, we can focus on understanding the treasury trends of 2023. In this article, we’ll analyse those trends with a focus on currency management and give you actionable tips on how to handle any hurdles ahead.
CFOs and corporate treasurers need to be well prepared for the upcoming challenges and opportunities as they manage currencies. The top five priorities in the corporate treasury space for 2023 are:
In the past year, the financial markets have seen high levels of FX volatility and an unstable economy that seems to point towards a recession. Trends of high inflation, banks’ rising interest rates, political instability, and more will remain in the new year.
Hence why, it is fair to say that currency managers need to be well-prepared to face interrelated risks affecting FX rates. Companies dealing with foreign currencies will have difficulties accurately forecasting cash flows.
However, there is no reason to panic yet. There are a few strategies that corporate finance professionals can implement to tackle FX volatility; we will explain them later.
Shifting interest rate differentials
Shifting interest rate differentials are a likely scenario in 2023 as central banks act to tame inflation, each at its own pace. The good news is that companies can optimise such interest rate differentials across the entire FX workflow. Here are a couple of examples:
– With favourable forward points, pricing with the forward rate improves the firm’s competitive position without hurting budgeted profit margins.
– With unfavourable forward points, pricing with the forward rate helps managers avoid losses on carry and the temptation of excessive pricing markups.
– Finally, the cost of hedging can be lowered by delaying hedging execution with the help of automated conditional FX orders.
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Liquidity management
In addition, the current emphasis on strong liquidity management will persist well into 2023. Liquidity management allows the treasury team to have a wider view of the company’s resources and be financially agile.
This will give any treasury professional the required accurate insights on the cash projections. And ultimately, help the business be prepared for potential liquidity risks that may arise.
Cash flow visibility
Avoiding less-than-stellar cash flow visibility will be top of mind for treasurers in 2023. As economic cycles could be disrupted again, companies need to be able to get ahead of the curve and reduce deviations in their cash flow projections.
However, we believe that the importance of having accurate cash flow forecasts is somewhat overstated, at least when it comes to currency risk management.
To understand why this is so, the treasury team should consider how the different cash flow hedging programs deal with this concern:
– In firms with dynamic prices, forecasting accuracy is not much of a concern because firm sales/purchase orders have a very high occurrence probability.
– In firms with steady prices across several campaign/budget periods, layered hedging programs build the hedge rate in advance instead of protecting an FX rate.
– In firms with steady prices for a single campaign/budget period, conditional orders to protect the budget rate provide managers with time to update their forecasts.
For better cash flow visibility in the new year, companies will need to consider their ability to implement hedging programs that best suit their needs.
Automation
In 2023, the role of the corporate treasurer will require professionals to improve their technological skills. The traditional treasury function is shifting towards an automated digital infrastructure that enables increased efficiency and faster processes.
To manage currency risk in the new year, treasurers will need to move away from siloed systems and wasting time on manual tasks. Instead, they need to look for a solution that is able to automate the entire FX workflow.
Tools that are able to connect, via APIs, to their treasury management system and other data sources, for updated reports that give accurate insights into their FX exposure.
Facing the challenges
Now you know the treasury trends that will be dominating 2023 for corporate treasurers. But we also want to give you some tips on how currency managers should act in the face of such challenges.
As we like to emphasise at Kantox, currency management is much more than currency risk management. And currency risk management, in turn, is more than just the act of executing a hedge. Let us see this in more detail.
Consider the case of automated conditional orders to protect a budget rate. To the extent that the underlying levels are not hit, no trades are executed. Yet, you are stillactively managing your firm’s exposure to currency risk.
Delaying hedges may lead to netting opportunities thatultimately result inless, not more, hedging transactions. The results are:
Less trading costs
Savings on the carry in the event of unfavourable forward points
Less cash immediately set aside for collateral requirements
The right approach for 2023
Pundits predicting a catastrophic 2023 may turn out to be right. Then again, they might not. In any case, the priority for currency managers is to take a holistic view of currency management that allows them to:
Embrace the entire FX workflow
Avoid silos and have commercial and finance teams work hand in hand
Take advantage of the profit margin-enhancing opportunities offered by currencies
As you have seen, corporate treasurers will need to be well-prepared for all the interrelated risks of the turbulent economic landscape. With the help of the right automation tools, the treasury function can have a strong currency management strategy that helps them storm the weather outside.
Kantox is the currency management automation solution that covers the entire FX workflow so you can improve your profit margins and leverage foreign currencies.
Book a free strategy session with our currency management specialists to learn more.
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ComplexCountries reports detail how corporate treasurers approach challenges in complex countries, across associated treasury processes and how they adapt to economic and regulatory changes.
Their reports cover a wide range of topics associated with treasury processes in these countries, and how they are impacted by economic and regulatory changes. This includes how corporate treasurers approach currency risk management, compliance with local regulations, and maintaining cash and liquidity in the face of political and economic instability. The goal is to help treasurers navigate these challenges and protect their company’s financial position.
Find below some of the free reports detailing complex country challenges for treasurers
Please log in on the website of ComplexCountries. Or contact ComplexCountries to find out about their subscription packages.
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Avoid the cliff and protect your cash flows! When volatility is at an all-time high, the right currency hedging strategy can set you apart. And save your business from an uncertain future. Transform your FX risk with a layered hedging strategy that will help you withstand unexpected changes in FX markets and protect your margins.
When implementing an FX hedging program, finance professionals responsible for risk management must be aware of the ins and outs of their business. This will be the starting point to uncover potential gaps in the hedging strategy and also opportunities to implement the program that fits perfectly.
Let’s understand how a layered hedging program works and how it could fit with your FX strategy.
Why is a layered hedging strategy important?
Layered hedging programs allow CFOs and Treasurers to handle the related problems of FX markets volatility, shifting interest rate differentials, and less-than-stellar cash flow visibility.
The goal of a layered hedging program is to smooth out the hedge rate over time to lower the variability of company cash flows. Additionally, a layered hedging program that is created from scratch can deal with the problem of forecasting accuracy.
Instead of ‘protecting’ an FX rate, layered hedging programs build the hedge rate in advance. And because hedges are applied in layers, in a progressive manner, you do not need a 100% accurate forecast at all.
Who can benefit from a layered hedging program?
Not all hedging programs are the same, as they tackle different goals for managing FX risk. Before you implement a layered hedging program and start dedicating time and resources, you need to think about certain conditions. These relate to your current business model -including pricing structure, the FX exposure you want to hedge, cash flows, etc.- and your company’s specific needs when it comes to FX hedging.
This type of hedging program is best suited for firms that need or desire to keep steady prices not only for one individual campaign/budget period, but for a set of campaign/budget periods linked together. In layered hedging:
(a) Prices are usually not FX-driven, meaning that the FX rate plays no role in pricing strategy.
(b) The impact of the ‘cliff’ -a sharp adverse fluctuation in currency rates between periods-, cannot be passed on to customers at the onset of a new period.
(c) The exposure to hedge is a rolling cash flow forecast for a set of periods linked together.
Unlike other cash flow hedging programs, like static hedging where prices are either frequently updated or updated at the onset of a new budget period, pricing does not act as a hedging mechanism in layered hedging programs. And that puts cash flows at risk, so a solution must be found elsewhere.
In comes the star of layered hedging, smoothing the rate.
Smoothing the hedge rate over time
The secret of achieving a smooth hedge rate over time is to create commonality between trade dates for a given value date. Take, for example, a 12-month layered hedging program. The value date of October is hedged in 12 different months, from October in the previous year down to September.
Next, the value date of November is hedged in the same manner, starting in November of the previous year down to October. And so on and so forth. Note that the two value dates -October and November- share eleven out of twelve trade dates with the same spot rate. That’s the concept of the mechanically created commonality that lies at the heart of layered hedging programs.
However, the process of ‘layering the hedges’ is not as simple as it may seem at first glance. There are some common challenges that Treasurers and CFOs face when manually performing FX risk management activities.
Common challenges in layered hedging
Before crafting the optimal layered hedging program for your business, there are three common challenges that need to be considered. These are crucial to the success of the FX hedging strategy. And they relate to the configuration of the program, the intrinsic constraints of the business, and the level of automation currently available to the team. Let’s take a closer look.
Configurations. Depending on risk managers’ secondary objectives, there are many possible configurations for a layered hedging program. Some of these configurations regard:
(1) The degree to which the hedge rate is smoothed, for example by adjusting the programs’ length.
(2) The optimisation of forward points. For example, hedge execution can be delayed if forward points are ‘unfavourable’.
(3) The distance between the average hedge rate and the spot rate.
Constraints. Each treasury team may face its own set of constraints, some examples include:
(1) The degree of forecast accuracy.
(2) Possible limitations imposed by liquidity providers who might not let a firm trade forward contracts that expire, say, more than two years out.
Automation. Needless to say, a manually executed layered hedging program can be pretty demanding, especially if many currency pairs are involved. We’ve seen companies running such programs with the help of enormous spreadsheets. This only creates two different operational risks:
(1) Spreadsheet risk, including data input errors, copy & paste errors, formatting and formula errors.
(2) Key person risk, as only a handful of individuals understand the formulas that underpin the ‘monster’ spreadsheets.
Eliminating the uncertainty
Layered hedging programs are a powerful FX risk management tool to face the trifecta of problems created by a highly volatile scenario. These hurdles include currency risk —including the risk of a cliff, as we saw recently with the GBP-USD exchange rate—, shifting interest rate differentials, and less-than-stellar cash flow visibility.
Now that you know the ins and outs of layered hedging, you can start transforming your FX risk management workflow. And forget about the challenges that may come when facing uncertainty. That’s a pretty powerful advantage in a scenario of pandemics, inflation and war!
Optimal hedging strategy with Currency Management Automation
If you want to leave behind the challenges of manual work when it comes to currency risk, consider implementing automation software.
Kantox is the only solution that streamlines the currency management process through powerful automation of the entire FX workflow. This enables businesses to reduce currency risk, protect profit margins and price more competitively.
A new white paper from Refinitiv, produced in collaboration with global consultancy, FINTRAIL, unpacks some of the key financial crime-related challenges facing fintech today, and explores how companies in this evolving sector can best manage AML compliance.
The fintech space is highly dynamic and agile, but this industry of innovation and opportunity is substantially impacted by a constantly evolving financial crime landscape.
Emerging technology, quickly adopted by fintech and leveraged to make every facet of our lives easier, is similarly harnessed by financial criminals seeking to engage in illicit activity.
New findings from Refinitiv and FINTRAIL – based on interviews with experts in different fintech across a range of geographies – reveal the top challenges faced by the fintech and focus on three key challenges currently at play in this dynamic space.
Fraud continues to grow across the globe and is a key pain point highlighted by the fintech we spoke to.
One of the top fraud-related challenges currently in play is application fraud, where sophisticated financial criminals typically impersonate individuals or make use of synthetic identities.
Illicit actors are leveraging powerful technology to do this – manipulating information, tapping into advanced graphics techniques and exploiting vulnerabilities wherever possible.
– AML challenges for fintech: Insights for the future
The fintecs we spoke to are responding in a range of ways, from providing better customer education and raising awareness to protect vulnerable customers, to ramping up collaboration initiatives between the private sector, governments and law enforcement agencies.
Digital assets and cryptocurrency challenges
Crypto continues to grow, and hand-in-hand with this, regulation within the sector is also increasing.
Against a highly dynamic situation, where products and technologies are evolving at speed, virtual asset service providers (VASPs) need to keep pace with a changing regulatory curve, especially when it comes to complying with differences across jurisdictions.
Even fintech that don’t bank digital assets need to stay acutely aware of the crypto-related risk as they may interact with VASPs, and consequently, need to understand potential regulatory obligations.
Sanctions
Sanctions are another key challenge for fintech, and little wonder given the global sanctions landscape that has unfolded throughout most of 2022.
AML teams have been scrambling to keep pace with the exponentially rising volume of sanctions, especially – but not only – those related to the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Not only has the absolute volume of sanctions been increasing, but individual sanctions have been becoming increasingly complex, leading to rising compliance costs for fintech as well as their traditional financial services industry counterparts.
Non-compliance can have far-reaching consequences – ranging from financial to reputational and more.
A best practice response
The fintech we spoke to are acutely aware of the need to protect against widespread illicit activity and of the requirement to remain compliant at all times.
At the same time, they operate in a lean industry of constant change, exponentially growing customer bases and a breakneck pace of business.
This means that building a best-practice response to financial crime must be carefully considered, efficient and effective.
Leading-edge AML technology, robust data and skilled compliance professionals – whether in-house or outsourced – can offer the solution to help manage and mitigate financial crime risk and the key challenges outlined above.
High on the list of fintech priorities is striking the all-important balance between operational efficiencies, positive customer experiences and regulatory compliance – and with the right data, technology and human insights, this delicate balancing act can be maintained.
https://treasuryxl.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/blog-refinitiv-200.png200200treasuryXLhttps://treasuryxl.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/treasuryXL-logo-300x56.pngtreasuryXL2023-01-12 07:00:092023-01-11 11:09:58How can fintech rise to the challenge of AML compliance?
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