Glossary

The shortcut method is a qualitative method of analysis approved only by the US accounting standards to test the effectiveness of a hedge relationship. In order to adopt hedge accounting, companies may use quantitative methods like the dollar offset method or qualitative methods, the most common of which are the critical terms match (CTM) method. The shortcut method exempts companies from having to prove the future and continuing effectiveness of a hedge if they meet a set of criteria. It is accepted in cases when the hedging relationship involves interest rate swaps and meets a series of very specific criteria. These limitations in effect restrict its use to certain types of simplified hedging relationships involving interest rate risk.

The Single Euro Payments Area (SEPA) is the geographical area where cashless EUR payments across Europe are harmonised. SEPA allows European consumers, businesses and public administrations to make and receive —under the same basic conditions— credit transfers, direct debit payments and card payments. The purpose of SEPA is to make all cross-border payments in EUR as easy as domestic payments. Covering the whole of the EU, SEPA also applies to payments in EUR in other Andorra, Iceland, Norway, Switzerland, Liechtenstein, Monaco, San Marino and Vatican City State.

A soft peg describes the type of exchange rate regime applied to a currency to keep its value stable against a reserve currency or a basket of currencies. Currencies with a soft peg are halfway between those with a fixed or hard pegged exchange rate and those with a floating exchange rate. The main difference between soft and hard pegged currencies is that the soft peg systems provide a limited degree of monetary policy flexibility to allow governments and central banks to deal with economic shocks.Practical examples of soft pegsA soft peg can be applied to the reserve currency within a narrow (e.g. 1%) or a wide (e.g. -25-25%) range and can sometimes be modified over time, usually in relation to variations in international inflation rates.Soft peg currencies include the Chinese yuan, an interesting soft peg currency as it is softly pegged to the U.S. dollar while also being a reserve currency, the Venezuelan bolivar and the Hong Kong dollar (which are both pegged to the U.S. dollar).Any kind of peg can be vulnerable to financial crises - which can result in a significant devaluation or even lead institutions to abandon the peg. Notorious examples of events like these are the Argentinian crisis of 2001 of the Swiss National Bank's decision to abandon the euro peg in 2015.

A spot trade is an agreement to deliver some amount of one currency for another currency in two business days. There is an exception to this rule. The Candadian dollar when traded against the U.S. dollar, settles in one business day. According to data from the Bank for International Settlements (BIS), turnover in the spot FX market was ab0ut $2.0 trillion per day.

Stagflation is a term used to describe an economy that is stagnant and experiences little to no economic growth.Signs of stagflation include high rises in the price of consumer goods and services through high inflation, a reduction in gross domestic product and high unemployment.It is exceptionally difficult to move a country out of a stagflated economic state, as the methods used to promote greater economic growth - for instance, to lower inflation - may have a detrimental effect on unemployment figures.Stagflation in JapanJapan's economy has remained largely stagnant since 1990, after a national asset price bubble crisis. The nineties became known as Japan's "lost decade", which has now stretched out over the better part of three decades, as the country has still not been able to return to sustained economic growth.Successive Japanese governments have attempted a plethora of policies in order to try to kick-start the economy, largely to no avail.

In the terminology of Currency Management Automation, a Stop Loss order is triggered whenever an adverse movement in the exchange rate automatically triggers the execution of a forward contract aimed at protecting the exposure against further unfavourable movements. When protecting the budget, Stop Loss orders are often set by management when the firm faces a scenario of unfavourable forward points. In such a situation, delaying hedges makes sense. When the market rate reaches the ‘tolerance level’ set by the firm’s risk managers, the Stop Loss order is triggered and the hedge is executed. Because it is triggered only if a certain level of the exchange rate is met, a Stop Loss order is said to be a conditional order. In Currency Management Automation, Stop Loss orders are paired with Take Profit orders (another type of conditional order) aimed at locking-in favourable exchange rate movements. In order to avoid duplicating the volume of hedging, Stop Loss and Take Profit orders automatically cancel each other. For this reason, they are known as ‘OCOs’, or One-Cancels-the-Other.

A subsidiary is a company, corporation or limited liability company whose controlling interest is owned by another company.The company with a controlling interest (more than 50% of the subsidiary's voting stock) is known as the parent company.The subsidiary, which is recognised as a legal entity in its own right, must comply with the national laws, and any local laws if necessary, of where it is located, regardless of where the parent company is based.One of the dilemmas faced by any company going international and setting up a subsidiary in a country with a different currency to that of the parent company is currency management. The equities, assets and liabilities of the subsidiary are subject to foreign currency risk if they need to be converted into the parent company's functional currency for accounting reasons.Depending on the company’s internationalisation strategy, it may be more advantageous to finance the subsidiary directly from the parent company, or for the subsidiary to bank locally.

A target redemption forward is a foreign exchange product that allows the holder, usually a corporate, to buy or sell a currency at an enhanced rate for a number of expiry dates, with zero upfront premium. The product automatically expires if the enhanced rate reaches a target level. But if spot moves in the wrong direction, holders can be forced to trade regularly at unfavourable rates for the full life of the product. Target Redemption Forwards are not the most appropriate hedging instrument for a company looking to minimise exchange rate risk. Companies looking for protection themselves against FX risks should opt for more straightforward alternatives like outright forwards or flexible forward contracts.

A trade repository (TR) is defined by the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) as “an entity that centrally collects and maintains records of securities financing transactions”. For the TR, this means validating, storing and matching transaction reports, making those reports available to authorised regulators and aggregating and anonymising the reported data as public information. Trade Repositories play an important role in enhancing the transparency of derivative markets and securities financing markets, and thus of the financial system. For this reason, they are heavily regulated by the government agencies in charge of financial markets supervision.

Trading platforms, also known as electronic trading platforms, are software programs provided by third parties that allow investors and traders to access, monitor and operate in the financial markets in exchange for a fixed fee, at a discount rate or, in some cases, for free.The Internet and financial technology developments have provided investors with the possibility of trading by themselves using a wide choice of online platforms. Some even provide services including information, research and recommendations of specific stocks or mutual funds (groups of stocks) for investment.Rather than trading through a broker or an investment bank, platforms such as Nutmeg are becoming more and more common among market participants. The Foreign exchange market has experienced spectacular growth in recent years as the advent of online forex trading platforms has boosted the volume of retail operations.

Transaction Cost Analysis (TCA) is the study of trade prices to determine whether past trades were arranged at favourable prices—low prices for purchases and high prices for sales. At the heart of TCA is the difference between the cost of the transaction at the time the manager decided to execute it and the actual cost, including all operating charges—spreads, commissions and fees. The resulting differential is called “slippage”. Currency Management Automation solutions aim at both minimising trading costs —by providing connectivity to best-price execution platforms— and providing the necessary data to conduct Transaction Cost Analysis.