For most companies, the problems with foreign exchange hedging can be summed up with two facts: It is time-consuming and costly. But technology is coming to the rescue with at least one new product that may take pain out of financial risk management.
Heading the list of resource-intensive activities is the measurement of a company's total exposure. For most companies, data is often scattered throughout various units in a number of locales and must be gathered and manually keyed into spreadsheets. That's where FIREapps, the software division of Scottsdale, Ariz.-based risk management outsourcing firm Rim-Tec Inc., thought it could help with the first, on-demand foreign exchange risk solution, FIREapps, which was recently released.
With FIREapps, a treasurer can, in as little as 90 seconds, do a full forex exposure analysis of the company's entire operations, says FIREapps CEO Wolfgang Koester. "In another 1.5 minutes," he says, "you can have the solution in your hands, too." Then, he suggests, it's a short step to an online trading platform where one can actually make the forex deals to achieve the recommended solution.
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"We have automated the most tedious parts of the process," Koester says. "Otherwise, the job takes so much time that most companies typically would do it once a month. Many only do it once a quarter." Now, he says, with the FIREapps Web-hosted approach, "you can go through the process daily."
Besides concerns over time and resources, using spreadsheets to calculate exposure opens companies up to error–bad data can result in inappropriate hedges. What's more, a lack of centralization of information can lead to individual divisions putting on forex hedges that either cancel each other out or duplicate each other.
FIREapps chose to use a software-as-a-service (SaaS) model so that the solution would be economically viable for midsize companies, which, thanks to the popularity of emerging markets in Asia and Eastern Europe, have more vulnerability than ever–and in more exotic currencies.
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