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Hello and welcome to CurrencyCast. Just in this episode, the tables are turned as I am interviewed by Guillaume Jouvencel and Hussam Ali from the Corporate Treasury 101 podcast. I had a fantastic conversation with the two as we discussed all things currency management. Expect to learn today about different instruments and strategies when managing currencies, how risk affects different industries, the lifecycle of an FX denominated transaction and a case study to show you how it all works. And now to get started,
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I hope you enjoyed the discussion. Hey Agustin, thanks a lot for joining the podcast. And can we maybe begin with you introducing yourself and explain us what you do. Well, hey there, It's great to be here! My name is Agustin Mackinlay. I'm the Senior Financial Writer at Kantox and the host of CurrencyCast, as both a financial writer and a creator of our podcast
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well, my my work involves writing reports and different pieces of research. And, well, I'm proud to say that we have here treasurers, guide them through the process of currency management in all of the different aspects. But it's really exciting to be here today to talk about all of this. Very excited as well. And I already held quite some terms that I can't wait to break down.
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But maybe before diving into this, can you explain us what Kantox does? Right, look, Kantox is creating a new software category, we call it currency management automation. We’re going to discuss of course all of these topics, but it involves in providing treasurers with mostly automated tools, software tools to guide them through the entire process of currency management.
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And we can break down that process in what we call three phases. A pre-trade phase, we're going to of course discuss that, where it starts with using a foreign exchange rate to send the price of the goods that you sell if, for example, you can sell them in overseas markets. Obviously that is going to involve a currency rate, but you can sell it in domestic markets if there are imported components that also is going to involve a currency rate.
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Then the process of the trade phase itself that involves executing what is in our case, forward currency transactions and of course, we're going to discuss in more detail. All the way to the lower post-trade phase that involves payments and collections in foreign currencies. Now we'd like to emphasize that this is an end-to-end approach and beyond all the technicalities,
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Hussam and Guillaume, what we aim here is to provide answers for concrete business problems, right? And so, for example, it's interesting that the Chinese have when they express risk, they use two characters and yes, of course there are some aspects of our danger in currency management. We want to emphasize the aspect of opportunities, right? We want to provide treasurers with tools to become more strategic, to take advantage of the opportunities that the currencies bring.
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And we call that embracing currencies, very optimistically. I love the approach! So I think you also guys have a podcast, right? I definitely want to break down everything, quite some actuality and news to cover as well. But beginning with the CurrencyCast podcast, can you walk us through what you do there and what it is about? That's right.
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We started the CurrencyCast podcast back in 2022 as a way to raise awareness about that category that we call currency management automation. And well, it involves a masterclass that I'm grateful to them for calling it that way. So, usually, we present in a relatively short episode one element of all of that sort of complex steps that are included in currency management.
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So that does what we're doing CurrencyCast and we are very excited to continue with it for the foreseeable future. Very cool. Very cool. Agustin thank you so much for coming on. So let's get into the nitty-gritty. So you mentioned a few times currency management. Could you define currency management as seen by Kantox?
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Yes. Right well excellent question, look currency management is the process of using foreign currencies in a commercial and also financial operation. Commercial operations, as I just mentioned. Right. If you're going to sell in overseas markets, it can be in dollars in Thai Baht, in Brazilian reais. Then exchange rates and currencies are going to be involved. Or if you're selling domestic markets, but so you're selling British pounds, furniture that you're imported from China is going to involve
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the Chinese currency, the British pound, though, the entire process starts with pricing. But as I said, there is also the risk management module, although this sort the only you're the only not the only one. Right. People tend to put the, to give more importance to that risk management, which is of course very important, but it's not the only one.
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There's got to be also the process of payments and collections in foreign currencies, and all of that must be included in what we call currency management. Do you define those differently between risk management and currency management, Agustin? Well, yes, as I said, pricing with an FX rate is a key component in currency market, in currency management. We’re going to see some examples I think a little bit later on. And the process of risk management also, is usually understood as executing hedges, and of course we need to define what that means.
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But at Kantox, we have a maybe a broader view of all that process. So for example, there are ways to manage risk the underlying risk in currencies without executing hedges and all of that is going to require was likely maybe a different approach that the one that is emphasized, right, mostly executing those currency hedges. So it involves more of more processes, more possibilities.
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In fact, it's a world of opportunity that opens up for treasures again to act more as strategic players within the company and allowing the firm to take advantage of those currencies to maybe enhance the firm's competitive position and why not securing budgeted profit margins. And even perhaps making a contribution towards, well, enhancing the value of the firm,
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why not? Now, pretty clear. I'm looking forward to dig into that. I heard some words that you and I and our listeners love, like hedging it's a hot topic for a piece on the cover Treasury 101 podcast. So looking forward to touching on that but before we get into that, could you give us some like examples of situations of where companies or corporates would use currency management?
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Exactly. Well, just so say that, we're dealing with a US-based company that has an order to sell in say €100,000 worth of goods. But the key thing is that the settlement of that commercial transaction, because it's a commercial transaction, there's going to be say in three-months time. What’s going to happen? Between the moment the transaction is agreed and the moment that it’s got to be settled, that it's settled in cash right.
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There's going to be a shift in the exchange rate, because we know exchange rates change second by second. Right. And so that is going to involve a number of processes and of course, going to depend on the type of company, the type of pricing characteristics or some face dynamic prices that change over time. Some companies, on the other hand, would like to keep stable prices for, say, an entire campaign or budget period.
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And all of this still designed to keep steady prices for as long as possible. These are going to be different types of situations that we're going to require or different types of currency management.
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I wanted to dig into the purposes of currency management, but it's basically to enable international trades right. As long as you have to deal with all the territories, countries that have different currencies, not only will you need to extend your own currency against or with the other one, but also hedge yourself against such an aspect of currency risk management, as you mentioned earlier, pretty clear.
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And what's the instrument typically that we find in currency management and then currency risk management, Mack? Right. Well, Guillaume, I would add to what you just said that, yes, we are used to thinking of the management in terms of commercial transactions, mostly buying and selling goods and services. And that's perfectly so right to emphasize that. Well, there's the what could be, say, a financial type of exposure to currency risk, which is, for example, a company makes a loan to subsidiary in a foreign currency.
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There's not a commercial type of transaction, but it's going to involve currency risk as a result of this commercial type of exposure and perhaps a more financial type of exposure. By the way, it's very exciting that right now we're starting to talk to all the clients from the fintech space, fintech companies that fund themselves in one currency and issue loans in another currency. Which also creates tremendous opportunities for them and for us to help them manage those currencies and that currency risk.
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Now, with regards to the tools that are used in currency management, well, I think the most important ones involve the spot market operations, forward markets operations, but also options and why not our futures. Would you like to discuss those? Absolutely. Please, let's dig into this. So what are the difference between all of those instruments, how do you use them, and in which situations exactly?
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That's right. Look, a spot transaction, as the name implies, is a transaction that is for example, if I go to buy one currency or I'm thinking in another one that takes place, the settlement and the delivery is on the spot, right? That's why it's called a spot market transaction, but it's not exactly on the spot. Why? Because it usually takes about two working days to be settled.
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But mostly it's a spot market transaction. The delivery and payment take place almost immediately. In fact, for the euro against the dollar, which is the most widely traded currency pair, it takes only one working day to settle and deliver. There are course all the types of foreign exchange transactions that help you manage currency risk and currencies in general. And the most widely used gear for us and in the world is so-called forward market foreign exchange transactions.
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And they also enable a currency that is going to be sold against another one or bought against another one. But the key difference is that settlement and payment do not take place on the spot. They got to take place at a date in the future. Right. That is agreed upon by both participants. And that creates at least two important differences with a spot transaction.
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The moment of course time is involved, right, you may agree to have delivery and payment, take place in two weeks time, in a month's time, six months, one year. But the minute time is involved, interest rates are refundable and that is going to add some complexity to well to unleash. Also you need to take your credit worthiness into consideration.
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An American president said trust but verify. Right. In order for you to be able to execute such a forward transaction, you need to make a good-faith deposit. Right, called it a collateral, that amount or cash, that needs to be set aside in order to avoid bad surprises. Makes a lot of sense. I like that finance people have quite an understandable jargon right, spots because it happened on the spot, forward you look forward the
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transaction. Makes a lot of sense. You mentioned a term that I would like to break down a bit, which is currency pair. What's, I think it's quite a simple one, but can you break it down for us please? That's right. I mentioned think the most widely used currency pair is the euro and the dollar, is expressed in well you see you will see it written as you EURUSD.
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What does that mean? It means they amount all U.S. dollars for €1. That's a currency pair could be express it the other way around. Right. Of course. Or the amount of euros for one U.S. dollar. It's just the conventions exactly the same. But these are the conventions on the most widely used currency pairs, of course, as I said, the euro, the dollar, but also the euro against the British pound, the dollar against the Japanese yen.
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And more and more, of course, as we were reading the news, we're seeing what's going on with China. Little by little, the Chinese currency is gaining momentum, meaning that currency pairs involving the Chinese currencies are also going to be more widely used going forward. Okay, so currency pair just simply refers to two different currencies at which you will look for the spot rates, a forward rate, or you just look at what is the exchange rate between those two in the time?
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That's absolutely the case. Yes. Makes a lot of sense, I guess. And can you that's super clear that we have the term that we hear sometimes, which is trading currencies when it comes to currency management. Can you explain us what that means exactly? Well, yes. Trading currencies involves of course buying and selling one currency against another. And maybe you are an example will help us see that.
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So let's say that you’re a Norwegian corporation you wish to buy, for example, 10 million USD. Now you're going to go through a foreign exchange dealer I was going to show you two not one but two currency rates to buy. It's not to show. So, for example, they bought 55 Norwegian krone a dollar, and 8.5530 Norwegian krones for one dollar.
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So what's going to happen here is at any time there's got to be people interested in buying dollars and in selling dollars. But you're if you are going to buy dollars, in this case, you got to pay 8.5530 Norwegian. And if you're another company wants to sell those ten million dollars, it's got to get paid 8.55.
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The difference is course, those are in $10 million amount, it equals 30,000 Norwegian krone. That's how dealers make money. That's how currency trading takes place. Could be on a spot basis or on a forward basis. Now we are at Kantox a bit keen to not overemphasise the term trading, of course is used right, and we do it all the time. But it has maybe a speculative connotation, right, or retail traders buying and selling.
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And we like to think of currency management as the opposite of speculation. Right. Yes of course this is going to involve that trade, but we're keen not to overemphasize that aspect. It's just one in the chain of events that, or the workflow right, that starts from pricing and then to payments separately. Thank you so much and there's a couple more a financial instruments that we had covered before in Corporate Treasury 101 and so we talked about spots and forwards, we also have mentioned things like swaps and options.
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Are those also used in currency management and if so how? Yes, absolutely, Hussam. They're used swaps and options. Just let's briefly break them down all one by one. So a swap transaction is a transaction in which you buy and sell the same amount of a currency against another, but with different value dates. What's a value date? Is the moment in time that a transaction is going to be settled. We saw that spot markets transactions is the spot for at transaction but takes place at a later date in the future.
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So swaps are very useful for for example, if you have a forward transaction in place, say to buy €1,000,000 against $1,000,000 against euro, but you realize that you needing to raise, say, $100,000. Well, what you could do is here execute a swap transaction whereby there is what is called the near leg in which you buy the $100,000 that you need
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settlement in two days. And at the same time you sell those $100,000 with the value date of the original position. And look at what you achieve. You're going to adjust your forward transaction to the means of the commercial hedging operation. At the same time, you're going to have the cash at your disposal that you were going to need in two days time.
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Very, very useful type of transactions here. Of course, that's good. There’s going to be a foreign exchange gain and loss, depending on the exchange rate. But still so very, very useful type of operations. Right. And we do that all the time. Options, on the other hand. So it's an altogether different animal rights. Look, when when you have the option to buy one currency against another,
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well as the name indicates you can, you have the option to decide whether to go ahead or not with that transaction. That is going to depend on obviously on the exchange rates, or the date of the settlement. Is it too good to be true? Well, yes, in a sense it is. So that's why option buyers need to pay what is called the premium to option.
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So it's a little bit like, you know, a regular insurance policy. You have the right to make your choice. But against that choice, you needed to come up with a premium payment. Right immediately done. So maybe there's an issue here with options that we don't really, we don't do at Kantox, we don't work with options and it’s the pricing of that premium, right?
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Of that right to decide whether or not to buy or sell. Well it can be the result of complex mathematical calculations, that sometimes in situations where there is more complexities involved, maybe it's not as transparent as forward contracts are. So that's why we tend, well, we don't use them at Kantox. We are, we like to say that,
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well, we are, we think forward right. We use forwards mostly and of course and swap transaction. So is this a swap is like if you had a forward already in place but for some reason you need to earlier. So it's kind of like an emergency options contract. If you knew you needed it before perhaps you or you had a higher risk of needing it before, you might have taken an option and paid for the premium.
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But a swap, would a swap then be more expensive than just getting an option every time? No, no. Why would you pick one over the other? Well, you're absolutely, absolutely right to say that the swap allows you to adjust your position and is so useful in that case. Now we call that to draw on a forward right, to use the cash that you need.
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Why is it so useful is because what you see in textbooks is, of course, with the settlement of a commercial transaction by miracle exactly matches the settlement date of your corresponding forward transaction. Maybe we'll discuss that in more detail. But in real life is not the case, right? These adjustments need to be executed. It's not always the case that the settlement of your commercial transaction
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exactly matches the value date of your forward transaction. So the reason why we prefer swaps and forwards is mostly because of transparency. There is no, the price is completely transparent, the transfer you can see that on Bloomberg, on Thomson Reuters, the information is widely available. Whereas options are more or they could be right depending on their complexity involved a little bit less
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transparency than we would like it to be for our clients. So they're very clear. And there's one word you haven't used yet, Agustin, that comes up a lot and Treasury, which is risk appetite. And my journey into learning about Treasury, Guillaume has taught me a lot, that treasurers are always thinking about risk. So how does that play into all of this?
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Right. Look, it’s of course, a fantastic point. Their risk appetite is well, is the reflection of the Treasurer's view on the underlying risk in currency management. We tend at Kantox, yes, I mentioned that a couple of minutes before, to avoid any type of speculation. That's really, really one key message that we always share with treasurers, CFOs, if needed with CEOs or the management or board of directors.
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No speculation is, in our view, the best way to manage currencies. And that is going to involve of course, as I think you are hinting at that, your own views, markets where they are headed to, is the exchange rate going to go up or down…But that is going also to involve perhaps your own biases.
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Right. And there's lots of those psychological biases that the treasurers have, that you have, that I have. And one way to deal with those biases, right, is with automated tools that are going to allow you to exclude as much as possible any possibility of engaging in speculation. Right. That's why we use that term,
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well, that concept of automation to deal with that potential risk. I can see, we really like to go down the rabbit hole, so you mentioned two things here. The commercial transactions that may happen at a different moment that it was foreseen and the risk appetite. From what I understand of the different instruments you described, would you rather use like not flexible instruments and probably therefore a bit cheaper for payments, on over which you have total control, and more flexible instruments for collections, making back to those swaps?
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Because those collections can arrive at a different time than it was initially planned. So is that such a thing in terms of strategy? And we're going to complete both hedging strategies, or those have nothing to do with it? Well, hedging strategies is a big word, we tend to use the term hedging programmes at Kantox. But yes, those hedging programmes are going to go as I said,
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so we're going to include all the phases, and the phases include payments and collections as well. But note Guillaume that forwards and swaps, so swaps could involve spot and forward transactions, they could involve two forward transactions. And so they are in our mind, roughly the same instrument that we're talking about, only with different value dates.
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So is the one that we prefer, is the one that we tell companies to use, is the most widely used of all by far, by the way in terms of currency management. So we don't see that there are enormous differences in payments and collections. We always use for payments, forwards and of course those swap transactions. Very clear
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Agustin, thank you so much. Can you take us further then into as I mentioned at the start, our favourite topic, which is hedging and these hedging programmes? So when we talked about hedging on Corporate Treasury 101 and Guillaume first explained it to me, talked about currency hedge, FX hedging and interest rate hedging. So focusing on the currency, or FX hedging specifically, what are those hedging programmes? And can you give us like examples from the real world?
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That's right. Well, look, let’s explain if you will a hedge here in relatively simple terms or hedges. If you go back to that example, the U.S. based company that has a sale in over €100,000, but the settlement is going to take place in three months time. What you do is to hedge that transaction, that is to protect against the risk in that transaction, transactional FX risk, with at the same moment, same date that you, that that operation was closed or was agreed upon.
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What you are going to do is you're going to sell the same amount of euros in the forward markets with what value date, with a value date if possible, that matches the date of the settlement of the commercial. A closer look at the magic that is going to operate here. What happens on the date of the settlement of the two transaction was a commercial one.
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There's a financial one that you've got to do with the bank, right? You've got to get paid EUR €100,000 on the commercial transaction, unable to wire that amount to the bank. Right. Against that amount, the bank is going to deliver your the value of the corresponding value in U.S. dollars. Note that the value was agreed upon as the transaction was also agreed upon.
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So there is no transactional currency risk, other than the impact of interest rate differentials that we may discuss a little bit later on. But also note that that allows us to define a hedge with more precision. The hedge is in fact, it is the creation of or taking a financial position in a so-called derivative instrument, in this case, a forward currency contract, whose value is going to shift in exactly the opposite direction as the value of the commercial operation.
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So, for example, in this case, in a settlement, the exchange rate between the euro on the dollar goes down right, there from a commercial point of view, you've got to get a what it's called an FX loss, the commercial transaction. What translated back into dollars is going to be of a lower value. But what happens when the value of your financial transaction, that is got to go up in value because you sold it at a higher price. So is an offsetting impact that defines the precision of a hedge.
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Now there are of course different, people call them, strategies or rather use of the term programmes. And mostly what they involve are, well, different types of programmes according to the pricing characteristics of your business. Is not the same if you're facing what we call dynamic prices or prices are updated all the time, like in the travel space,OTAs, online travel agencies are going to face
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Prices that are second by second and they change all the time. Or a situation in which you wish to keep, say, a steady price, a fixed price on a catalog for one year, or one budget or one campaign period, right, could be less or more than one year. And you have the ability to well, to reset your prices at the onset of a new campaign. Still, another possibility is those firms that perhaps were competitive pressures need to keep their prices steady for more than one or two compete.
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In fact, for as long as possible, one could start to call for different hedging programmes. And that's where things get, of course, very, very exciting. Can you in terms of still hedging strategies, is there such a thing as hedging only a proportion of your commercial transaction? And by this I mean, so the example you mentioned with the 100,000 USD, could you hedge or like contract with the bank for what, only for 50K, for instance? Because of this pricing incentive, you don’t want to pay too much for the cost of hedging, but you also want to have a little bit of certainty.
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Is there such a thing or that doesn't exist? Well, again, this you just described the process of protecting a budget rate, right. That's what happens, well in budget hedging. Maybe budget hedging is not the correct expression, but when you want to protect the entire budget for one year, you're going to do exactly as you're implying. You're not likely or at least we don't advise companies to take right at the start of the budget period ahead for the entire budgeted forecasted. Why? Because it is going to create forecasting risk right here.
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What if COVID hits you in the midst of the budget period? Right. You will end up, in this case being what is called overheads. You will have a large financial transaction, but you're on the side of the value of your commercial transaction might be, in this case, lower due to COVID or whatever the economic crisis, etc...
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And that's exactly what we tell companies to do as they are going to undertake a programme to hedge their budgeted exposure. Now, very important that, because here thiis a fantastic example, Guillaume thanks very much for citing it, because it leads to the difference that we see in currency risk management and hedging. Let me explain it.
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So say that as you imply, you don't want to hedge the whole of the expected or forecasted budgeted exposure but say maybe 20% of it or 40% right at the start. That’s a prudent way to deal with things and it’s going to reflect your degree of forecasting accuracy. Right. But you don't want either, so other to have the rest of the exposure completely left for possible fluctuations in currencies. What is that we advise companies to do? That and we execute automated hedging programs
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for the remaining part of the budgeted exposure, what is called conditional FX orders. All of this I'm sure you've heard about conditional FX orders. They include so-called stop-loss orders and take-profit orders. In this case, what we're going to tell management is, look, well, the remaining exposure that you didn't want, perhaps a very good reason to hedge 100% right at the start.
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Let's put in conditional FX orders. How do we calculate them? Well in such a way that you are going to divide the remaining exposure in three thirds. And so you're going to put three stop-loss orders in place. Such that if they are executed, if the market moves not in your favour, there is say your worst-case scenario in currency markets,
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the average of these three stop-loss orders exactly matches your budget rate, the budget rate that you used in setting prices. Well, that's one way, you see Guillaume and Hussam, one way in which currency risk matters, because we're managing risk here, not letting the company have unmanaged exposure to currencies, but we're not necessarily executing hedges. We are monitoring markets, making sure that you're still actively managing your exposure to currency risk, but maybe not executing hedges all the time, but could be also for interest rate reasons, pretty expensive.
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Well, now I get enthusiastic about this because look at what's going to happen there. You're going to get, as a treasurer, to the extent that this stop-loss order unexecuted because markets maybe are not very volatile, perhaps they move in your favour. So you could put also take-profit orders right to take advantage of favourable moves, but to the extent that here stop-loss orders are not executed in time and time, as I'm sure you've seen that in many talks with treasurers and with people in treasury, time is the most precious asset for the Treasury team. Also it’s going to give them the possibility to
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do a lot of things. One thing is of course to update, to fine tune, to improve their cash flow forecasts. So as they do that and they do that with the help of information that comes from real world, it's not just forecast, now they've got to be able to see what's going on in automating the business sales, the purchases and they're got to fine-tune that.
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Now as you find during your forecast the upside or to the downside, you automatically adjust the level and the size of those condition. But then you make sure that the process improves as time goes by. Note also, and again I display my enthusiasm here, know that also often goes back you might discover or find what is called netting opportunities.
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I'm sure we'll discuss that a little bit or what netting opportunities is. Hey, why would I execute ahead if maybe a subsidiary has in a trade in the opposite direction? And even more to the point., but that involves a pretty technical point that is perhaps best left for a little bit later on. There is the interest rate impact.
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If interest rates are not in your favor, let’s discuss that in a couple of minutes. But they're delaying that hedge execution with the help of conditional orders is going to allow you to lower, to lessen the impact of those unfavourable interest rates. So lots of things are there to do as you can see, depending on the type of strategy or programme that you wish to implement. Now that's very apparent Agustin.
00;42;08;14 - 00;42;53;28
Thank you so much. I mean, there are so many different strategies you can put in place and you're taking us through lots of them. I’m sure there's way more. Does it, you mentioned earlier about online travel agencies and how they have, you know, a certain need because of the environment that they're in. That raises the question of do industries have different strategies that are very common to them? Largely around like you mentioned, online travel agencies will be making transactions in seconds in different currencies where a factory which is making one big bulk order of a certain raw material every month, would have perhaps a different strategy in place.
00;42;53;28 - 00;43;23;13
So how does it vary by industry and what are perhaps the extreme cases on each side? Yes, absolutely. So a great point there. Yes, it's in our view the main point that calls for different types of strategies or programmes is recalling the pricing parameters of the firm and pricing parameters might be a little bit confusing so let's call them pricing characteristics.
00;43;23;15 - 00;43;57;16
Do you face dynamic prices like the OTAs? Or do you keep your prices steady for one campaign? Or do you keep your prices as steady as possible for as long as possible? That's the key element. Another element is the difference in interest rates as we're going to explain it a bit later. But to go back to the example of on the travel sector, this is a fantastic one is perhaps the extreme one, right in terms of dynamic prices.
00;43;57;18 - 00;44;26;03
Now there's geo location services, payment apps, algorithms that track demand and supply changes in seconds, that has turned for prices in travel incredibly dynamic. They change literally minute by minute. So it's very very difficult therefore or almost dangerous to take a budget hedging approach such as the one I describe a little bit earlier on. Right.
00;44;26;03 - 00;44;57;13
Because you would have the forecasting risk would be extremely high and you wouldn't, you would take perhaps too much risk. What we do here is we advise companies to apply what we call a micro hedging program, for those firm sales or purchase orders. You could for example, buy hotel capacity in Thailand and sell packages in Canada.
00;44;57;13 - 00;45;54;13
Is going to involve currency risk on the buy side, currency risk on the sell side, is going to involve many times small transactions right, and it's going to involve perhaps many different currency pairs. Well that's almost or that is impossible to manage manually. What you want here is to what we call to aggregate those individual pieces of export. So that instead of executing a hedge for, say, a couple of thousand pounds or dollars to have a little bit more of an aggregation and then only you would execute the hedge. Note that this requires all the time that you recalculate the value of that exposure with the new these piece of information new sales order or
00;45;54;13 - 00;46;47;12
new purchase orders that comes in and this is absolutely impossible to do it manually. You really need here the help of software tools to handle all of that. Super clear. And so linking to the software tools, I can see them also in more generally the currency management world. Who are the main actors actually? You mentioned obviously the corporates, who are in need of FX deals to cover the commercial transactions. Who else is out there? Corporations are the, by far, the key the biggest users of currency management solutions both for the commercial type of exposure to currency risk, financial type of exposure. But you could also mention currency dealers that have a very useful function in
00;46;47;12 - 00;47;11;07
finding all those buyers and sellers that allow you to create a lively market. And in that regard, by the way, Guillaume there’s an interesting development. Well, it's not new now, but it has flourished in the past, say, well, two or three years and it's called the, we call them multi-dealer trading platforms. So it's just 360T.
00;47;11;09 - 00;47;36;14
So what they enable you is to automate what we call the trade part, right. The execution of that forward, or spot, or swap transactions. Treasurers now have the tool to automate all of that. Well, part of the process the trading phase itself thanks to those platforms. By the way, those platforms we give you will have lots of features.
00;47;36;16 - 00;48;05;24
One of them is called best price execution, which is really interesting because it's quite an amazing science, right, when you see those currency rates fluctuating second by second. Not only that, but also with the different banks that might have slightly different rates on which they buy and rates, I would say. So the software solutions there from let's go to see the result.
00;48;05;25 - 00;48;36;24
Those multi-dealer trading platforms automatically make sure if you're interested in getting the best price you will get it. Not always not everybody wishes necessarily for the best price execution. For example, if you're doing business with a bank in other parts of the company, in raising capital, in managing other pricing
00;48;36;24 - 00;49;23;17
of risk, take interest rate risk or commodity price risk or whatever. You might want to channel out your FX order to that particular institution. But your other choice to, is a way to automate all that trade. And of course banks are the other side, the very big players here. Because what a bank has is, well we know that right, contact with anybody. The given amount of currency and all those who want to sell that amount of currencies, of course they do that in money market instruments, in whatever, in equities, on a spot basis, on a forward basis, on the options basis.
00;49;23;17 - 00;50;00;07
So banks are very important here, of course, as they have all those contacts that enable to create what we call liquidity. Meaning that you will have at all moments, 24/7 almost, a price to execute your desired transaction. So these are the three big players here: the dealers that put the banks and the corporates in contact, the corporates that use the currency markets for currency management purposes, and the banks. I can’t help myself
00;50;00;07 - 00;50;49;20
but to ask then. I mean we have a whole question on what does Kantox do and the way you guys work. But where does it sit in all this Kantox? we have in trades across corporates, FX dealers and financial institutions and therefore for my curiosity, where does Kantox fit into all this? Look what Kantox offers is, as I said, a set of automated software solutions to handle that end-to-end management, that starts with all the way from pricing and then channelling that to the trade phase and then the post-trade phase. We call that end-to-end because, and that's really, really important here,
00;50;49;22 - 00;51;25;04
some people argue for automation as what is called discrete automation, meaning you solve one particular issue. But we really emphasize end-to-end automation, meaning integrate all the parts. To give an example, if you are saving a few what's called pips, fractions of the difference between the price at which you sell and which you buy, you may save them by automating trade phase of the workflow.
00;51;25;06 - 00;51;56;22
Well what if you're not integrating the pre-trade phrase? That involves the process of exposure collection that we might discuss. If you don't have a proper integration between those two, what you save on trading costs you may lose on poorly managed currency risk. So that's what we do. Now those solutions are based on a technology that you want to go into that discussion, one that involves mostly APIs,
00;51;56;22 - 00;52;22;19
Application Programming Interface. It's a fantastic piece of technology that enables us to provide those solutions. That was are great overview into the different aspects of currency management, currency risk management, etc. Moving forward, you started to touch on the typical life cycle of an FX deal. You mentioned a little bit about pre-trade and post-trade and whatnot. Could you take us through that journey?
00;52;22;19 - 00;52;48;23
So what is a typical lifecycle of an FX deal starting at pre-trade? Yes, absolutely. Look, it's a great point because it is not mentioned for you in textbook. You pick up a textbook on currency management and there you have it, by magic the exposure is there and all you need to do is to execute a hedge. Look,
00;52;48;26 - 00;53;29;04
in real life things are, of course, a lot more complicated than that. What we call exposure is, for example, that budget forecast could be a piece of exposure, but also a firm sales order, for which no invoice has still been issued. Or it could be an invoice, or an accounts receivable, or an accounts payable. So there are different types of exposure and that's why we give a lot of attention to the process of the pre-trade phase of gathering that information, collecting that exposure.
00;53;29;06 - 00;54;02;12
If I mention forecasts and then firm sales orders and then invoices, in real life you will get that, you will see that these pieces of information oftentimes are to be found in different companies' system, right. Maybe it’s spreadsheets, if it's about forecasts, maybe on your enterprise resource planning or ERP, if it's about sales or purchase orders, maybe in your Treasury management system, if it's about invoices.
00;54;02;13 - 00;54;49;03
And you need all those systems to be able to communicate, to talk to each other, in order for you to be able to gather that information about exposure to currency risk. Note also that maybe headquarters has a fine process in place, but maybe some subsidiaries do not. So all of this needs to be managed and it is absolutely key to have all in its entirety, all of the exposure information collected and in a timely manner, as soon as possible
00;54;49;03 - 00;55;32;04
especially if interest rates are in your favour. So that pre-trade phase includes that process of exposure collection, but also what we call exposure validation, there must be exposure processing that includes validation. Somebody has got to, there must be rules or somebody to validate, to confirm that a hedge is about to be executed. If you go back to Guillaume’s example of a loss straight at the start of the period, a very senior person in the organization must validate that trade because otherwise, you could be in trouble.
00;55;32;04 - 00;56;11;12
So processing the exposure involves rules to validate those trades and rules to aggregate also different pieces of the exposure. So in a nutshell that’s the pre-trade phase, we went then to the trade phase mostly now done with those multi-dealer trading platforms. And there's going to be what we call the post-trade phase, including accounting and of course, all the processes of reporting and analytics. If you can help me understand what you mean by exposure in layman's terms?
00;56;11;12 - 00;56;36;14
Right, so is exposure gathering just sort of figuring out what the risks are for your company in whatever dealings you have coming into the future? It's kind of just for understanding where you might lose out due to external factors. Is that is that a good way to summarize it? Yes, yes, it is right. And that exposure can be again in the shape of just a forecast.
00;56;36;16 - 00;57;09;22
But is typical for when budgeting takes place. It's a complicated process in which purchasing managers, the sales teams are going to be involved, perhaps accountants, economists. Lots of teams are going to come up with an Excel spreadsheet in which all that information it's gathered. And once the budget period is on the way,
00;57;09;24 - 00;57;37;16
it’s of vital importance to have a strong, solid process to make that calculation. Because of course, if you want to manage the underlying currency risk, you need to know exactly how much to trade in forward markets. That exposure could also be in the shape of firm sales orders, that's what happens in the travel industry.
00;57;37;16 - 00;58;15;29
We don't advise here to hedge your exposure based on forecasts but rather on firm sales or purchase orders. Or it could be for firms that are interested in just an accounting side of risk management. Namely to avoid excess, variability in their profit and loss, in your income statement to hedge at the moment the invoice is recognized in accounting firms or issued. So there are different types of exposure to risk.
00;58;16;03 - 00;58;45;04
Absolutely. Very clear and you mentioned earlier about netting FX processes and instruments, are you able to define that netting at the pre-trade phase or only afterwards? Very good point. Sometimes it's going to be at the pre-trade phase. But again, remember that textbooks tell a very different story than reality.
00;58;45;06 - 00;59;17;25
And especially when you have to deal with many subsidiaries that have different processes in place and the effort must be very, very clear from the beginning to have the best process in place to gather all that information. But netting could be, as I think Hussam you're deducting for what I said earlier, that when you delay hedge execution with the help of conditional orders,
00;59;17;27 - 00;59;52;21
then you're going to find that, and that's a very good point, you might have more time to spot to incorporate those netting opportunities, which could be very important. Right? Because say that headquarters is were planning to sell, whatever, millions in dollars at a given value date. And suddenly it turns out that one subsidiary has to buy the same amount of dollars with the same value date, why execute two hedges, right? It would be costly.
00;59;52;24 - 01;00;23;06
And it will force you to set aside cash or remember those collateral requirements or good faith or payments that you do beforehand. So to do it twice, it would be very costly and indeed netting is about that. And is a way again that we at Kantox emphasized not to understand currency risk management, in this case, not only just as executing hedges.
01;00;23;08 - 01;00;51;05
Oh great. I think the last point in the pre-trade phase is that you need to get a rate given to your right. So you mentioned earlier a little bit about competitive bidding or the different FX traders like, what's the process of actually getting a rate for your FX transaction? Yes and thank you Hussam for reminding me of that, because maybe I had not mentioned that point is a very important one and in fact is incredibly exciting.
01;00;51;05 - 01;01;18;09
Once again, another case that you will not find on textbooks now, say that you're importing furniture from China and you plan to sell that in the UK market. To your commercial team, the exchange rate between the pound and the dollar or the Chinese currency, depending on whether in China is the trade is going to be settled in dollars, which is often the case, or in the local currency.
01;01;18;11 - 01;01;45;09
That becomes a key element of all your business strategies. So it's absolutely vital to understand the process through which this foreign exchange rate is obtained by the commercial team when they price that transaction. Again, easier said than done because there are many questions here. Where do you get that rate? Do you get it from a website? Is it up to date?
01;01;45;11 - 01;02;14;20
Do you get it perhaps from the central bank? As most central banks do publish their exchange rates. Do you get it from Bloomberg or from, say, Thomson Reuters or a financial service? Now perhaps you might want to, something that we could also discuss, you would like to use the forward rate instead of the spot rate to determine your price, in your local currency, as there are interesting differences here.
01;02;14;22 - 01;02;40;04
And also you need to define how often are you going to source that. It’s going to be once a day and you give that to all the commercial team? It’s going to be once a day at 3:00, but why 3:00 and not at 2:00? Or is going to be every week? You see there are lots of possible ways to do that.
01;02;40;07 - 01;03;15;11
What we call a good FX rate sourcing process is one in which the finance team, the treasury team feeds, so to say, commercial teams with the FX rates they need for pricing purposes. A rate can be, again, spot rate, or it could be a three-month forward rate or the six-month forward rate. It could include a markup, a slightly higher rate or a lower rate, depending on your client segments.
01;03;15;13 - 01;03;46;11
So a good process will provide the commercial team with all the rates they need: spot basis, forward basis, with a markup per client segment, for a currency pair they desire. That's if it's done on a real-time basis, it’s so much better. It’s going to allow the team to be a lot more competitive in terms of pricing and look at what you will be achieving here.
01;03;46;16 - 01;04;22;09
Something that is more and more discussed now in business is: your going to remove those silos that you have when the Treasury teams act in isolation with respect to other teams in this case the commercial team. But what if you allow them to cooperate? What if the process of sourcing the rate is exactly the way to remove those silos, that separation that is causing so much trouble.
01;04;22;11 - 01;04;53;13
Now, there's an incredibly exciting document or book for anyone to have, I should say, by consultants at McKinsey. They are calling for, if you can believe it, $8 trillion in revenue growth between now and the end of the decade. And it has got to go for those who are capable of removing those silos and has a competitive advantage. Mack, you sometimes make treasury sound like poesy.
01;04;53;14 - 01;05;37;12
I really love it, that's perfect. So we covered quite extensively the pre-trade phase right? What about the actual trade phase? How does a trade happen in real life? Look once again to go back to the example of the US-based company that has costs in dollars and it’s called the functional currency, that’s the currency in which they have costs in, the currency in which they present their financial statements, and they have a sale planned in euros. And ideally,
01;05;37;13 - 01;06;04;20
and it happens all the time, at the trade phase on the same dates in which your closing a transaction, that transaction is agreed upon. You're going to also sell the corresponding and well with a bank or through most likely a Multi-Dealer Platform with a value date that is set to coincide with the settlement of the commercial transaction.
01;06;04;22 - 01;06;32;13
So here in the best-case scenario, payments are not going to be much of an issue here because the cash that you receive from your commercial transaction is going to be used to settle your financial transaction. Remember that you had an agreement, we say an agreement it's a contractual agreement, it's on the contract. So you must comply with that agreement.
01;06;32;15 - 01;07;05;16
We must deliver those €500,000 to the bank in exchange for which you have received those dollars. And that's an ideally executed payments process. But as I think we mentioned, right, sometimes these moments are not going to coincide. The cash flow moments of the commercial transaction might not exactly coincide with the process of sorry with a validation of the financial transaction.
01;07;05;17 - 01;07;32;00
That's why you need to have swaps in place. Swap execution by the way, Guillaume, it’s really interesting here because could be, when manually executed, very time-consuming and resource intensive and you can make mistakes. Even the possibility of fraud or unethical behaviour. So to the extent possible, all of that process needs to be automated.
01;07;32;00 - 01;07;58;20
And that's why we also have one feature that we include in currency management automation solutions. We would definitely want to dig into this and maybe just close the loop before. So pre-trade's pretty clear. The actual trades we just covered, what happens then after the trade? I believe there are quite some steps, right? So what happens once the trade is done and what type of reporting, including automation that you mentioned?
01;07;58;22 - 01;08;24;01
Can you walk us through this? Right. Yes, that's an interesting point because again, people understand, what people understand of currency management stops at the trade phase, that’s it, all the work is done goodbye, and I can relax. Hear, I can see the beach in front of me. I can go to the beach. And that's the end of my workflow. It is not the case.
01;08;24;03 - 01;08;57;08
More work needs to be done right, and you want to involve accounting, reporting and analytics. Accounting here has some… Presents some difficulties. For example, accountants or accountants are trained to recognize on their own on the books of the company a transaction the minute the corresponding invoice has been issued, right? That’s their job and they must do that.
01;08;57;10 - 01;09;41;00
However, especially in the case of forecasted exposures, perhaps you executed the corresponding forward transaction before the moment that the invoice is recognized on company books. That can create confusion, right? Because accountants must record the change in the value of that forward instrument. So you can have a perfectly normal situation in which you would have a foreign exchange gain from your commercial exposure but is not yet recognized because the corresponding invoice has not been issued. yet
01;09;41;02 - 01;10;05;18
you have a foreign exchange loss. Remember that a hedge is an offsetting transaction. One goes in one direction and the other in the other direction, so you could have considerably a loss in your forward position corresponding. Remember, they're going to cancel each other. One is not recognized while the other is. That creates some confusion. Some CEOs don't want to see that.
01;10;05;18 - 01;10;32;20
They don't understand the sources of this changes. So they are accounting principles that allow you to call hedge accounting, new accounting standards that allow companies to take away those foreign exchange gains and losses from the P&L and for the temporary in other accounts. What it requires of course lots of hours of work, for accountants is time-consuming.
01;10;32;21 - 01;10;59;25
It's an expensive process, at least what can be automated is the process of compiling all that information, that can be also automated. Remember that we tend to have at Kantox the favourable view of automation. We always say that automation removes tasks, not jobs. So there it is. A good example also to automate the process of compiling all that information.
01;10;59;29 - 01;11;32;08
Now when it comes to reporting and analytics, that's another matter. That's more for internal purposes to assess your performance, to assess how well your hedges are working, your KPIs or key performance indicator. Yeah, that's it. Thank you. And that is going to involve of course, depending on the type of program, the distance to the hedge rate or the P&L, the interest rate impact, and all of that.
01;11;32;11 - 01;12;02;11
You need, or in the ideal world of course, we want reporting systems that allow us to have all that information on a real time basis, available on a real-time basis. About your impact of hedges, or what is the biggest source of risk, how well are performing. And all of that needs to be,
01;12;02;16 - 01;12;30;14
in such a way that is easy to understand, and easy to read, with data segregation capabilities, perhaps it's very sensitive information that not everybody must see. And well, that also is an important aspect of currency management as well. One that is again disregarded mostly in textbooks, but in real life, believe me, it plays an important role.
01;12;30;14 - 01;13;19;01
I think the last year's HSBC survey pointed out the point that 80% of CFOs would like to have at their disposal better analytics systems, and that's also made possible with currency management automation solutions. Awesome! Just there is a concept that it took me a while to wrap my head around, which is FX gain and losses. So if I understand it correctly, when you hedge yourself against an FX risk ,if the movement between the two currencies indeed goes down, against you, but you hedge yourself, you make a gain because if you will have not hedged, you will have made a loss and you actually need to declare that profits in your P&L.
01;13;19;02 - 01;13;54;23
Is that correct? Yes, it is, absolutely. And the way to think about this is mostly that remember that one is going to cancel the other. Right? So to go back to the example of the US producer with saves in euros. If the euro depreciates, when those euros are going to be translated, because there is a time lapse between the moment the transaction is going to be agreed and the moment is going to be settled. If the euro depreciates during that time lapse, the value of your commercial transaction is going to diminish.
01;13;54;24 - 01;14;22;08
But the opposite is going to happen to the value of your forward transaction because you sold those euros in the first place. So and you've got to get a lower exchange rate risk, which creates a foreign exchange gain offsetting that foreign exchange loss. Now, you'll need to take into account here is that interest rates here play a role.
01;14;22;14 - 01;14;57;02
Yes, that's one of the most technical and complicated parts. But if I could summarize it in non-technical terms for your audience, it would be the following. There are, of course, currencies that are seen as safer right, than others. Some currencies that are seen as riskier than others. One example is, of course, the Swiss Franc, widely seen as the strongest currency. Now because of that
01;14;57;04 - 01;15;29;17
low-risk perception, interest rates in Swiss Francs are very low, almost nil. Right? And if you take interest rates on an emerging market's currency where risk is perceived as being higher, interest rates are going to be higher. And that creates a difference between the spot rate and the forward rate and is going to have an impact on those net foreign exchange gains and losses that you mentioned.
01;15;29;20 - 01;16;06;17
So, for example, in this case, if a Swiss-based company sells Mexican Pesos on a forward basis, because the Mexican Peso is widely seen as riskier than the Swiss Franc, the company is not going to get as much Swiss Francs as it would in the spot market that rates at what we call the high cost of hedging. And yes, it's and is going to have an impact on those net foreign exchange gains and losses.
‘s
Right? Sometimes they've got to be in your favour. We call that favourable forward points, forward points are the difference between the spot and the forward rate, or unfavourable forward points. Thanks so much, Agustin, for taking us through the whole trade lifecycle as well. Just to start bringing things to a close, could you take us through, in little bit more detail, about what Kantox does and how they integrate into this whole process?
01;16;35;28 - 01;16;55;29
You mentioned earlier about, you know, where you sit with the FX and the banks and the corporates. Could you give us an example of something that Kantox has implemented or done that sort of highlights what you guys do in that whole process? Yes, of course. Yes. The case here, would be one with a French company called Thea Pharma.
01;16;55;29 - 01;17;35;15
It is a mid-size European pharmaceutical company in the speciality chemical area. Now they have a tool to sell within emerging markets and that creates erosion, with what you just said right there, if they're based in France and the euro is their functional currency in which they have costs and in which they present their financial statements, is a relatively strong currency as opposed to a weaker, in Brazil maybe in South Africa and Mexico.
01;17;35;17 - 01;18;02;20
So that creates what we call the high cost of hedging because remember, as those currencies are seen as riskier. When they hedge, they are going to get paid less in the forward market than in the spot rate, so the way to handle this is to put in place an automated program that allows them to delay the execution of those hedges.
01;18;02;21 - 01;18;46;02
Right? And that requires from their part to be able to gather all of their exposure to currency risk, from subsidiaries, from headquarters in a timely manner, in a complete manner. And this is done with the help of all of our solution, mostly Kantox Dynamic Hedging, which goes to source that information from ,in this case the Treasury Management System of Thea Pharma, and is going to route that information to go the Multi-dealer Trading Platforms.
01;18;46;04 - 01;19;16;05
Then in a way that is already, the information is gathered and processed in such a way that conditionalorders are in place in order to delay the execution of hedges to avoid that negative impact from interest rates. Remember that it sounds like just one or two conditional orders, but it's going to take much more than that because these forwards are executed.
01;19;16;07 - 01;19;46;20
The exposure needs to be adjusted and it needs to be very precise and automated. The process also. So the company has saved on those financial costs by delaying the execution of the hedges, while still having the risk under active management. Right? So they have their exposure to currency risk under active management. So the risk is taken care of, even though hedge execution is delay. That have also help the company
01;19;46;24 - 01;20;20;08
to remove those time-consuming or resource intensive and repetitive tasks performed by members of the Treasury team. And has allowed them to save on those on those courses. We like to think here in terms of risk, cost and growth. And the growth aspect is where we lay more importance, because think of what happens when you have all these processes in place, right?
01;20;20;10 - 01;20;53;03
And you have most of them automated. Remember that we are keen to emphasize that automation removes tasks and not jobs. Why is that? Because now the Treasury team of Thea Pharma has more time of the disposal to devote to value-adding tasks such as: scaling to more currency pairs if needed, to always be in a position to operate in the most convenient or more profitable currency which they weren’t
01;20;53;07 - 01;21;22;02
given the size of the Treasury team, there were not able to do before the Kantox solution. So they decided to stick to a core group of currencies and leave the other ways, the others untouched. But now all of those time-consuming and resource-intensive aspects of manually executing tasks are removed. And they have more time to devote to those value-adding
01;21;22;06 - 01;22;02;00
tasks specially thinking in terms of growth, of expansion, we really want to emphasize that part because with risk on currencies under management you would be in a position to confidently tackle your markets. And pocket sometimes those mark ups hat are charged by clients when they don't use their own currencies, or you are able to remove also those FX markups when you buy and you end up also selling dearer and buying cheaper.
01;22;02;00 - 01;22;34;25
So protecting and enhancing your profit margins. So all of this is what we do and all day long we analyze the situations with companies remember that the pricing characteristics is maybe the one defining aspect of how we are going to interact with them and what type of problem we're going to propose. We like to get into the nitty gritty details of integration and implementation and what are the tools and systems you actually integrate with.
01;22;34;25 - 01;22;58;28
You said you were like streamlining the process of this exposure gathering and processing and interfacing directly with the FX dealers. But on the corporate side, are you linking to the ERP then with the AP and AR are populated and therefore the exposure gathered or is it the TMS where does Kantox fit into this? Yes, absolutely. Look, this is, of course, a key point, right?
01;22;59;00 - 01;23;24;23
Well, it’s going to depend on the different nature of the exposure that you want to manage. So most of the time the forecast is going to sit in the company spreadsheet. The firm sales orders are going to be at your disposal on the ERP of the company. Perhaps these invoices are going to sit on the Treasury Management System.
01;23;24;23 - 01;23;59;10
So you need what is called software-to-software interfaces that allow the systems to communicate with one another and they’re called application programming interfaces. Absolutely a key piece of technology that is of course powering all of our solutions. Because that's what enables those systems to communicate with each other is veryimportant when you have, for example, combinations of hedging programs you want to hedge your budgeted exposure.
01;23;59;10 - 01;24;26;00
Yes, perhaps about to take one big frame at the start and put conditional order on the rest of the exposure. Well, you want to also hedge the incoming firm sales, so that's a fantastic combination that allows you to hedge those firm sales orders as they materialise. And the minute they materialise, you adjust the rest of your exposure.
01;24;26;00 - 01;24;55;14
So you end up almost now completely forgetting about the risk of over hedging. But these must be done with theses technology solutions. Application programming interfaces are so vital, but not only in hedging, they are very important in pricing as well. Right? Because when the Treasury team, sorry, the commercial teams, they require their FX rate.
01;24;55;16 - 01;25;41;18
Remember, they could be part of the forward rates. They could have markups per client segments, per currency pair. This information is transmitted to them also through the application programming interfaces. And last but not least, it also is used in the post-trade phase. As you want to be able to have what we call traceability. You want to have a system that allows you to trace all the individual small hedges back to the forecasted exposure. Because you need to make the necessary adjustments or you need to perform the accounting tasks that correspond. And again here as in reporting,
01;25;41;20 - 01;26;11;20
those APIs play a key role is definitely the most important piece of technology, again, allows systems to communicate, to talk to each other in a way that makes that seamless integration possible. Otherwise, of course it wouldn't be possible, we’ll still have fragmented different processes of automation in different phases of the workflow.
01;26;11;22 - 01;26;40;05
Very clear. Agustin, I think to wrap up, I think this is an absolute masterclass in currency management overall and risk management. So thank you so, so much. I'm sure our listeners got a lot out of it. If you could summarize, just to finish the episode, Currency Risk Management in one key lesson for new treasurers out there, for people getting into this topic, how would you just summarize into one key lesson?
01;26;40;05 - 01;27;41;13
Hussam I would use two words: embrace currencies. Yeah, that's our key motto here. Beyond all the technicalities application programming interfaces, spot and the forwards, the interest rate differentials, exposure gathering and trade execution. It pales in comparison with the importance of the business side of automation. Right, s about growth about trying to capture those growth opportunities to protect and enhance your competitive position. To maybe get the chance to improve your profit margins, to raise the sales to assets ratio, and to make a contribution towards enhancing the value of the firm, because ultimately that's the task of the Treasury team.
01;27;41;13 - 01;28;22;29
So I would summarize this two words: embrace currencies with confidence, if you are able to manage the process in its entirety. That's great! And just to finish, where can people go to know more about you, Kantox, CurrencyCast? Where should they go to find out more? The best way is to go through our website kantox.com and there you will find all the material, or the possibilities to have a conversation with our currency management specialists and also to have access to lots of different materials.
01;28;22;29 - 01;28;39;09
And of course to CurrencyCast. Awesome we'll put that out in the show notes below. Agustin thank you so much. All right. Thank you. It was really a pleasure to be with you. And well, see you next time.