Treasury cash manager Ross Millard is happy to give his fax machine a rest. He does so thanks to the addition of Misys Treasury Plus, a Web-based trading portal by British vendor Misys PLC. Millard oversees foreign exchange and money market dealings for Europe, the Middle East and Africa, involving many counterparty banks, for ElectroComponents PLC, a $1.4 billion U.K.-based distribution company. Before they had the Misys solution, Millard's staff would spend much time faxing confirmations back and forth with banking staffs to reconcile transaction details for the company's treasury workstation. Any one of the 40 or so transactions a week could be worth $10 million or more, so mistakes could be costly. "If the details go astray or if it's paid late or too early, you could lose money on interest costs," says Millard. The risk of errors and delays is greatly reduced with the Misys solution, which includes a SWIFT connection that gives ElectroComponents multi-bank access.

Although Misys is best known for its banking and financial services systems, the company has made a steady push into the corporate treasury sector since acquiring the CrossMar Matching System from Citigroup. Around that confirmation and matching functionality, now called Treasury Plus, Misys added trade execution functionality through partnerships with best-of-breed vendors Currenex, 360T and Hotspot. Most recently, Misys added hedge accounting and financial risk management capabilities through a partnership with New York-based vendor Reval.com Inc.

With the addition of Reval's technology, which offers derivative pricing analytics and hedge management capabilities, the Misys portal goes a long way toward building an end-to-end trading application that can contribute to treasury compliance efforts, including FAS 133/IAS 39 requirements. "The fact that Misys can connect to SWIFT and other banking products means it is used to handling huge volumes of settlements and has experience being connected directly to the banking networks," says Elizabeth St-Onge, a principal at management consulting firm Treasury Strategies Inc. She says that many treasury departments continue to struggle with integration and communication challenges that Misys' integrated approach appears to address, including a solid foundation on which to build further functionality. "The Reval partnership is a further step into the portfolio and risk management arena." The next step for Misys is expected to be cash management functionality later this year.