FTA The Exchange Magazine #3

FTA

EXCHANGE

FINANCE AND TREASURY ASSOCIATION // ISSUE 3 JUNE 2017

DIGITAL KNOWLEDGE LIBRARY Catch up on past presentations in your own time. www.financetreasury.com.au

CONTENTS 7

THE AUSTRALIAN CASH PARADOX

18

THE COST OF HEDGING: OTC DERIVATIVES REFORM IN AUSTRALIA

Record levels of passive cash reserves are destroying shareholder value for corporate Australia – lazy capital delivers lazy growth. It’s time to shift the corporate agenda and re-focus on growth and M&A..

The recent Over-the-Counter (OTC) derivatives reforms are having wide-ranging effects on global financial institutions.

20

EVENT RECAP: FUNDAMENTALS

23

CORPORATE TREASURER INSIGHT: WOMEN IN FINANCE

The fourth annual Fundamentals in Treasury Operations Conference kicked off in Sydney last month with a fresh new program resulting in over 70 corporate and industry professionals coming together

Blathnaid Byrne: Group Treasurer - AGL Energy Stephanie Lowe: Group Treasurer - Head of Trading Risk and Compliance - Grain Corp

32

FINTECH SHOWCASE: FAIRDEALFX What began as a sophisticated spreadsheet built to help out a friend that ended up saving her over $11k in one month has recently been launched as a web application bringing pricing transparency to the FX market at a price point that even small companies can afford.

4. A NOTE FROM OUR PRESIDENT 34. PARTNER DIRECTORY

ADVERTISING AND EDITORIAL FTA Exchange Magazine is published by the Finance and Treasury Association. All material in FTA Exchange Magazine is copyright.

Reproduction in whole or part is not allowed without express permission from the publisher

Nadia Kentera nadia@ftasecretariat.com.au +613 9820 1113

4 // WELCOME

A MESSAGE FROM OUR PRESIDENT MIKE CHRISTENSEN FFTP - FTA PRESIDENT Changes to the FTA Board of Directors I’ve written in previous pieces that I’m a big fan of committee rotation, succession and invigoration. Sometimes these rotations occur in a planned and orderly fashion and sometimes change is forced upon us due to events beyond our control. Either way, they present an opportunity (provided risk is adequately managed).

Scott Hamilton

For the past five years Steven has done a fantastic job as Chair of the FTA Technical Committee. He’s led the committee through some extraordinary and positive change. Steven’s also orchestrated the induction of new members, promoted greater transparency, and renewed focus on providing leadership to all members. And finally, he’s provided thought provoking ideas and suggestions to regulators.

Steven had a big part to play in securing Vandita Pant’s (Group Treasury and Head of Europe, BHP Billiton) attendance and participation at last year’s conference.

I have been notified that Scott Hamilton is no longer in a position to continue as a director for the FTA. Scott was the FTA’s Victorian Chapter representative.

Steven has also been instrumental in helping with the development of the Association’s approach to learning.

Scott has made a significant contribution to the Association, and was recognised for this when he was awarded a Fellow of the Association at last year’s conference.

He holds a deep-seated belief that the Association and its members are there to help support and develop the next generation of finance and treasury professionals.

Scott’s written pieces and use of the media have helped raise awareness of the knowledge and skills that finance and treasury professionals bring to the business community. He’s been instrumental in fostering and developing the relationship that exists today between the FTA and the RBA. Scott has incredible awareness of international issues (particularly across Asia) and their impact on finance and treasury as well as the broader Australian economy.

Congratulations, and welcome Steven. I look forward to your contributions and insights to the board.

I would like to take the opportunity to personally thank Scott for his contributions to the board through the course of 2016.

Steven Cunico It is with great pleasure that I announce Steven Cunico’s appointment to the FTA Board.

Steven has been a long-time supporter across many parts of the Association.

Fundamentals of Treasury Operations Conference Thanks to those of you that registered and attended this year’s Fundamentals of Treasury Operations Conference. We had our biggest number of registrations for this conference since inception.

We’d love any feedback on your experience at the conference.

Let us know what you enjoyed, and if there are any areas in which we can improve.

Annual Conference Finally, the program for this years Annual Conference, “Thirty Years and Beyond, Managing Risk in the New World” is taking shape. We have some fantastic opening plenary and closing keynote speakers lined up, so register your place now.

Congratulations, and welcome Steven. I look forward to your contributions and insights to the board.

Developing tomorrow’s finance leaders

CELEBRATING 30 YEARS

ANNUAL CONFERENCE

SHERATON GRAND MIRAGE - GOLD COAST 15 - 17 NOVEMBER 2017

EARLYBIRD REGISTRATIONS OPENING SOON... ftaconference.com.au

The Australian Cash Paradox

Corporate Capital Making more growth

Record levels of passive cash reserves are destroying shareholder value for corporate Australia – lazy capital delivers lazy growth. It’s time to shift the corporate agenda and re-focus on growth and M&A.

Record levels of passive cash reserves are destroying shareholder value for corporate Australia – lazy capital delivers lazy growth. It’s time to shift the corporate agenda and re-focus on growth and M&A.

Businesses are under increasing pressure from shareholders and financiers to continually optimise the deployment of capital and maximise returns. Capital optimisation brings a unique set of challenges and opportunities to businesses.

This paper is just one of our perspectives on this topic.

1 The Australian Cash Paradox

The Australian Cash Paradox Deloitte’s recent research of the ASX 200 has identified the emergence of a cash paradox. The companies holding the majority of the cash war chest in corporate Australia are growth laggards.

Cash-rich companies are weighed down by their cash

Small cash holding companies have 3x higher growth

Total cash reserves of ASX 200 non-financial companies

32 companies

hold $57bn in cash reserves 2 The Australian Cash Paradox

129 companies

hold $13bn in cash reserves

The Australian Cash Paradox

The world’s largest 1,000 public companies held US$3.5 trillion in cash reserves at the end of FY131. Here in Australia just 20% of ASX 200 companies have accumulated 82% of total cash reserves.

Cash-rich corporates have been underperforming by a factor of three since the GFC, compared to companies with relatively small cash holdings, measured either by quarterly revenue growth or share price performance.

Companies holding small cash balances have been more bullish in their pursuit of growth and consistently more aggressive in their M&A activities – an approach consistently rewarded by share markets since 2009.

As a result, we have a cash paradox.

“At some stage, the equity analysts, shareholders, fund managers, commentators and so on will want to be asking not ‘where’s your cost cutting or capital return plan?’… but ‘where’s your growth plan?’” 2 – RBA Governor Glenn Stevens.

Cash-rich corporates need to re-evaluate their ‘yield vs growth’ strategy and re-focus on growth. The 24 growth pockets identified

by Deloitte Access Economics and a number of overseas countries have the potential to create these opportunities.

It’s time to address the cash paradox in corporate Australia.

1 Excluding those in financial services 2 Governor Glenn Stevens, ‘Address to CEDA Luncheon’, Adelaide, 3 September 2014

3 The Australian Cash Paradox

The haves and have-nots

Deloitte Australia analysed the cash reserves of the 200 largest companies on the ASX and explored their spending patterns. Collectively, this group (excluding companies in the financial services sector) held A$70 billion in cash reserves in 2014 – and most of this was held by the miners (39%), followed by consumer businesses (18%) and industrials (18%). Remarkably, just 20% of companies have accumulated 82% of the cash reserves – we call these the ‘large cash holding’ companies. As we dug deeper, we found that, when cash reserves and historical spending patterns are compared, a cash paradox emerges.

80bn 70bn 60bn

Figure 1. Cash holdings of ASX 200 non-financial companies by industry Materials (incl. mining) Industrials Consumer Business

$70BN

Energy Telecommunications Services Healthcare Utilities Information Technology

Just 20% of companies have accumulated 82% of the cash reserves.

Figure 2. Cash reserves of ASX 200 non-financial companies (A$bn) Small cash holding companies

50bn

Large cash holding companies

40bn

129 companies

30bn

32 companies

20bn 10bn 0 2000

2001

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This Australian phenomenon is also observed globally.

The leading 1,000 public non-financial services companies held US$3.53 trillion in cash reserves at the end of 2013, and our analysis found that just 32% of them have accumulated 81% of total cash reserves.

The ratio of cash reserves held between large and small cash holding companies remained broadly at 3:1 over the last decade. However, the GFC has had a profound impact on ‘cash hoarding’ tendencies among larger companies.

4 The Australian Cash Paradox

2007

2008

2009

2010

2011

2012

2013

2014

Globally, the ratio of cash reserves widened post-GFC, and in Australia, the cash reserves of the large cash holding companies jumped from A$24 billion in 2008 to A$46 billion in 2009, widening the ratio gap with small cash holding companies.

In contrast, the small cash-holders held a balance of A$11 billion in 2008. This remained fairly constant throughout the crisis years, and currently stands at A$13 billion.

Notes.

1. ‘Cash reserves’ refers to cash, near-cash items, marketable securities and other short-term investments.

2. All analysis of the ASX 200 does not include those within the financial services industry.

How corporates spend their cash

We considered the spending patterns of these two groups of companies by analysing their capital expenditure and the proportion of cash reserves allocated to this spending category.

In the five years since the end of the GFC, large cash holding companies have averaged capital expenditure at 74% of cash reserves, down drastically from 131% in the prior decade.

Both have increased their capital expenditure in recent years, although at different rates. However, when we compared capital expenditure as a percentage of cash reserves we found that this ratio was lower for the large cash holding companies.

The small cash holding companies have consistently maintained their capital expenditure at an average of 81% of cash reserves over the same period, down somewhat less from the prior decade, which averaged 95%. This suggests an unwavering attitude towards capital expenditure as a proportion of cash reserves among this group, regardless of economic conditions.

Both groups of companies have increased their capital expenditure in recent years, though at markedly different levels when compared as a percentage of cash reserves.

Figure 3. Capital expenditure of ASX 200 non-financial companies as a percentage of cash reserves (2000-2014)

80bn

180%

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140% 120%

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5 The Australian Cash Paradox

2003

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Large cash holding companies actual capex spend (AUD $bn) Large cash holding companies capex spend as a % of cash reserves

0%

80bn

50bn

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0%

Small cash holding companies Small cash holding companies actual capex spend (AUD $bn) Small cash holding companies capex spend as a % of cash reserves

Divergence in performance

The importance of diverging attitudes towards cash accumulation and spending are put into context when the relative performances of both groups of companies are considered.

Globally, we have seen the same trend. Since 2000, the share price performance of small cash holding companies has outperformed their large cash holding counterparts, growing by an astonishing 632% compared to 327%.

In Australia, small cash holding companies have experienced higher revenue growth since 2009 – a five-year compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 6.5% compared to large cash-holders that experienced a CAGR of 1.9% over the same period.

Remarkably, the gap widened even more after the GFC, suggesting that in the long run, financial markets are rewarding companies that take a bullish attitude towards growth.

More striking is the relative share price performance of the two groups. A clear divergence of performance exists from 2009, with small cash-holders producing better returns.

Deloitte analysis suggests that financial markets are more rewarding of companies that are willing to take a bullish attitude towards growth.

Figure 4. Relative revenue growth of ASX 200 non-financial companies

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Revenue growth (rebased to 100)

140 120

Large cash holding companies Small cash holding companies

100 80 60 40 20 0

2009

2010

2011

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Share price (rebased to 100)

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Figure 5. Relative share price performance of ASX 200 non-financial companies

200

Large cash holding companies Small cash holding companies

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6 The Australian Cash Paradox

Dec 09

Jun 10

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Jun 14

The cash paradox and M&A

M&A activity tends to be a significant area for utilising cash reserves. And since the onset of the GFC, there has been a significant decline in global M&A volumes, as companies waited for market sentiment to improve before taking on greater risk in the pursuit of growth.

Globally, and since 2009, the large cash holding companies spent US$1.02 trillion on M&A. But as a proportion of their cash reserves, annual M&A spending has been on the decline – in 2013, M&A spending as a proportion of cash reserves was just 13%, compared to a high of 60% in 2007, a record year for global M&A deal volumes.

By comparison, small cash holding companies have spent US$603 billion on M&A since 2009, and in 2013 their M&A spending amounted to 78% of their total cash reserves, far higher than their cash-rich counterparts. In fact, during the boom year of 2007, small cash holding companies spent 217% of their cash reserves.

27

Small cash-holders have been consistently more aggressive in their M&A activities.

This suggests that large cash holding companies, even when they are pursuing M&A deals, remain financially conservative. On the other hand, smaller cash-holders are far more bullish in their pursuit of growth, and have been consistently more aggressive in their M&A activities.

2014 proved to be a turning point in post-GFC M&A activity. Globally, companies announced M&A deals with a combined value of US$2.8 trillion in 2014, making the year the best for deals by value since 2007. The defining theme for 2014 was the return of mega-deals over US$10 billion, with 27 announced, and worth US$647 billion in value, again the highest since 2007.

mega-deals worth US$647 billion announced in 2014, the highest since 2007.

7 The Australian Cash Paradox

Growth opportunities for corporate Australia

For Australian corporates, we see many opportunities for growth.

The third report in Deloitte’s Building the Lucky Country series, Positioning for Prosperity? Catching the next wave, identified the ‘Fantastic Five’ sectors (agribusiness, tourism, gas, wealth management and

international education) that offer the next waves of above market growth over the long term. Together with many other growth opportunity pockets, including aged care, medical research, retirement living and financing the ‘Fantastic Five’, we have identified 24 sectoral hotspots for the future.

Fantastic Five

Agribusiness

Gas

Tourism

International Education

Wealth Management

Growth Pockets

ICT – Gateway to the future

Financing the Fantastic Five

Clean coal

Gas transport

Food processing

Disaster management & preparedness

Next-gen solar

Next-gen nuclear

Medical research

Ocean resources

Community and Personal care

Retirement living and leisure

Reskilling an ageing workforce

Financing the future

Residential aged care

Preventative health and wellness

Digital delivery of health

Private schooling

Parcel delivery

Outside Australia, market opportunities in a number of Asian economies are also plentiful.

China: Late last year, Australia and China signed a free trade agreement and, notwithstanding the slowing growth rate within the Chinese economy, we expect this market to offer growth opportunities for companies in the food and beverage, professional services, financial services and health and aged care sectors.

India: India has recently reduced barriers to foreign direct investment in a number of sectors, including insurance and pharmaceuticals. In addition, the new government is focussed on

8 The Australian Cash Paradox

reducing bureaucracy and regulation and increasing investment in infrastructure. We expect to see significant opportunities for Australian companies in India’s financial services, resources and construction services sectors.

Indonesia: With a new government and a young and growing middle class experiencing a significant increase in wealth, Indonesia will present opportunities in the retail, food and beverage and health sectors.

Four strategies for growth

Companies will continue to grapple with ‘yield vs growth’ strategy dilemmas.

But the challenge for CEO and CFO agendas remains to optimise capital between investment, financing and dividend decisions. Ultimately, the ability to create sustainable growth will be paramount in terms of optimising capital.

We analysed a number of high performing companies and how they have executed their growth strategies.

Four key themes emerged: 1. They made inorganic investments in adjacent markets/offerings through acquisitions rather than building this growth themselves.

2. They invested in ‘growth pockets’ or sub-sectors, which offer above average market growth capitalising on their core competencies.

3. Where outright acquisitions weren’t available or they didn’t have the complete core competency, they formed strategic alliances and joint ventures to mitigate their risks.

4. They considered the optimal use of capital from the perspective of shareholders and where appropriate, returned capital to shareholders (in a tax effective manner in a number of cases).

Our analysis indicates that ‘doing nothing’ and holding on to the cash is destroying shareholder value. Winners will likely be those that understand the cash paradox, those that take a long term outlook, and those that are decisive and steadfast in their pursuit of growth. In other words, it could be a case of triumph awaiting the optimists.

9 The Australian Cash Paradox

Contacts Robert Arvai Partner, Mergers & Divestments Tel: +61 2 9322 5995 Email: ravai@deloitte.com.au Tapan Parekh Partner, Corporate Finance Tel: +61 2 9322 7521 Email: tparekh@deloitte.com.au Selwyn D’Souza Partner, Growth Strategy Tel: +61 2 9322 7491 Email: sedsouza@deloitte.com.au Lee Dryden Director, Mergers & Divestments Tel: +61 2 9322 3788 Email: ldryden@deloitte.com.au

This publication contains general information only, and none of Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Limited, its member firms, or their related entities (collectively the ‘Deloitte Network’) is, by means of this publication, rendering professional advice or services.

Before making any decision or taking any action that may affect your finances or your business, you should consult a qualified professional adviser. No entity in the Deloitte Network shall be responsible for any loss whatsoever sustained by any person who relies on this publication.

About Deloitte Deloitte refers to one or more of Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Limited, a UK private company limited by guarantee, and its network of member firms, each of which is a legally separate and independent entity. Please see www.deloitte.com/au/about for a detailed description of the legal structure of Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Limited and its member firms.

Deloitte provides audit, tax, consulting, and financial advisory services to public and private clients spanning multiple industries. With a globally connected network of member firms in more than 150 countries, Deloitte brings world-class capabilities and high-quality service to clients, delivering the insights they need to address their most complex business challenges. Deloitte has in the region of 200,000 professionals, all committed to becoming the standard of excellence.

About Deloitte Australia In Australia, the member firm is the Australian partnership of Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu. As one of Australia’s leading professional services firms, Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu and its affiliates provide audit, tax, consulting, and financial advisory services through approximately 6,000 people across the country. Focused on the creation of value and growth, and known as an employer of choice for innovative human resources programs, we are dedicated to helping our clients and our people excel. For more information, please visit Deloitte’s web site at www. deloitte.com.au.

Liability limited by a scheme approved under Professional Standards Legislation.

Member of Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Limited © 2015 Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu.

MCBD_SYD_02/15_051292

THE COST OF HEDGING:

OTC DERIVATIVES REFORM IN AUSTRALIA The recent Over-the-Counter (OTC) derivatives reforms are having wide-ranging effects on global financial institutions.

As the reforms are implemented, and banks look to establish efficiencies, the impact on corporate treasuries will become more pronounced.

In the wake of the Global Financial Crisis, G20 nations committed to a series of measures aimed at shining light on global shadow banking activity. With the complex interconnectivity of OTC derivatives becoming apparent through the Lehman Brothers collapse, global regulators agreed to take steps to improve market transparency.

New requirements included instituting transaction reporting rules across jurisdictions, as well as requirements to trade OTC derivatives on regulated platforms (SEFs). Regulators also agreed to try and make financial markets more stable, mandating that market participants mitigate their counterparty credit risks by exchanging initial and variation margin for OTC derivatives, either bilaterally or via a Central Clearing Counterparty (CCP).

The agreed-upon reforms are having deep and long-lasting impacts on financial institutions internationally. A recent EY survey of Australian banks showed that responding to these reforms has come at great cost and disruption, with 75% of surveyed participants having spent between $US30m and $US50m on implementation to date. This has been the case particularly for institutions looking

to operate in global markets, where they are often caught by regulations across multiple jurisdictions.

In spite of this, most Australian banks are now well-progressed in addressing the OTC requirements. Financial institutions have begun to take a more strategic view of the reforms. Many are looking to improve their risk oversight functions and governance frameworks. Most are looking to optimise their operations and transition their reforms programs into business-as-usual (BAU). All are looking to reduce costs.

As the industry’s response to the reforms matures, the impact on corporate businesses will become more pronounced. Corporate leaders should ensure they are across the effects on their business.

Treasurers, in particular, must ensure the rules around (1) OTC clearing, and (2) margining for non-centrally cleared derivatives, are well-understood and accounted-for in both their funding and compliance strategies.

The impact of the reforms may be direct or indirect.

Direct impacts Corporates trading more than AUD 3bn in monthly aggregated average notional for non-centrally cleared OTC derivatives will

RISK MANAGEMENT // 19

be required to disclose this to their trading counterparties and exchange variation margin on these uncleared trades under APRA’s Prudential Standard CPS 226: Margining and risk mitigation for noncentrally cleared derivatives. If trading more than AUD 12bn, they will be additionally required to post initial margin on their trades, as the regulation is phased-in to full effect.

Companies operating as local branches or subsidiaries of global firms should pay special attention to whether they are captured under a broader ‘margining group’, i.e., whether APRA would consider the OTC notional amounts traded by related or parent entities when determining regulatory capture.

Indirect impacts Corporate treasurers should also carefully consider the indirect impacts of these OTC reforms on their businesses. In particular, they may wish to consider clearing OTC derivative trades even when they are not mandated to do so.

Banks prefer to clear OTC trades wherever possible, given that trading with a CCP requires them to hold aside less regulatory capital (to account for counterparty credit risk) than trading with a corporate business directly. Cleared trades are also less expensive to execute operationally.

For businesses not mandated to abide by the new rules, it might all seem like a lot of fuss. But the market is changing, and businesses must assess their options.

Corporate treasurers should consider the following: 1. Understand your positions with regard to the reforms. Are you currently captured under CPS 226 or international equivalents?

What will be your hedging requirements over the short- to mediumterm?

2. Assess the opportunity to clear OTC trades. While some products must be cleared, others are being offered by various clearinghouses as demand increases.

3. Conduct a cost-benefit analysis of cleared versus uncleared trading. Include variables such as pricing differentials, cost of clearing brokers, clearing-house fees and costs of funding.

Understanding your obligations under the reforms, as well as the opportunities to establish cost-efficiencies, will be paramount to effective hedging in this increasingly complex trading environment.

The views expressed in this article are the views of the authors, not Ernst & Young. The article provides general information, does not constitute advice and should not be relied on as such. Professional advice should be sought prior to any action being taken in reliance on any of the information. Liability limited by

In other words, from a bank’s perspective, clearing an OTC derivative trade is considered cheaper than trading it bilaterally with the counterparty.

a scheme approved under Professional Standards Legislation.

EY’s recent survey shows that all Australian banks are reflecting these cost differentials in their pricing to their clients. Our discussions in the market support this, with some asset managers and corporates being shown both cleared and uncleared prices for the same instruments.

While in some cases such pricing differentials are small, in others, the differential can be significant. We only see these pricing gaps widening as liquidity in the cleared market grows and makes hedging activity cheaper for counterparties able to clear. New vendor products offering the ability to clear such non-centrally cleared products as non-deliverable forwards (NDFs) will additionally lure more market participants to move towards clearing and encourage this process. In other words, this market trend is likely to affect both clearable and ‘non-clearable’ products.

The net effect? Businesses looking to hedge their commercial exposures using uncollateralised or uncleared OTC derivatives are likely to have to pay more than those businesses that choose to clear those same trades.

Braian Szwarcberg-Poch Senior Manager Capital Markets Advisory

What’s next?

The choice to adopt OTC margining, cleared or uncleared, is a significant one for corporate firms. Process and system implementation costs can be significant. New risk management frameworks are required. And the need to hold additional cash or securities to cover margining obligations will impact firms’ funding and liquidity strategies.

EY

Andrew Bangura Senior Manager Financial Services EY

4TH ANNUAL

FUNDAMENTALS OF TREASURY OPERATIONS CONFERENCE 2017

The fourth annual Fundamentals in Treasury Operations Conference kicked off in Sydney last month with a fresh new program resulting in over 70 corporate and industry professionals coming together. A sell out conference with a fantastic new mix of new entrants, middle management and senior treasurers all coming to enhance and develop their treasury knowledge while networking with like minded professionals.

There was shift in focus at this event, which Conference Chair, Fulvio Barbuio FFTP, Head Corporate Treasury and Risk, Australian Broadcasting Corporation describing it well in his closing comments, looking at the overall position of treasury now and going forward and not on specific products treasuries uses. This gave attendees an opportunity for them to think about where they fit into their treasury environments now and going forward and how to better position themselves in both circumstances.

Paul Travers FFTP, Director KPMG provided the introduction on the Fundamentals of Treasury and Liquidity Management, honing in on the key treasury disciplines and what we need to know.

This was followed up by a presentation by Iain Semple CFTP, Director, KPMG on how we need to think about ensuring we have and can acquire the right technology platform to capture and manage treasury risks and how choosing the right technology can really add value to your business and performance.

An ongoing issue that we are challenged with now is Cyber Security and the threat of attack to our systems. Jeremy Dunn, Associate Director, Cyber Security, KPMG made attendees think about organisational weakness, motivations of attack, what to look out for and how to address these threats.

FTA LEARNING // 21

THINKING ABOUT HOW WE WILL COMMUNICATE, TRANSACT AND MANAGE RISK IN FIVE YEARS’ TIME A break from the technical skills of treasury to the personal development and Executive Coach Andrea Corcoran from Stephenson Mansell Group got attendees off their chairs and provided an interactive session on personal leadership, taking attendees on a personal journey about their own desires to achieve higher and what is needed to step up to the next level.

A panel of Treasury experts then discussed the power of your skill-set and what you need to stand out and make yourself relevant in your team. They discussed the importance of influence, negotiation skills, strengthening networks and the different types of relationship levels required for now and for a successful career. First hand experience was shared on how to position oneself in treasury now and for the future.

The conference closed off with a look to the future, seeking to think about how we will communicate, transact and manage treasury risk in five years’ time.

Attendees were challenged to think about how the growth in apps could be used from a treasury perspective and the future trends that face them.

Overall the conference provided the opportunity to network and connect with a range of industry professionals, software providers and provide a platform to share a mix of insights on where we are now, how to position ourselves and what the future holds in treasury.

JOIN LEADERS AT ALL LEVELS OF YOUR FINANCE AND TREASURY CAREER We’ve developed memberships options to kick start your career, get you ahead and be beneficial at all stages of your working life.

We even want you to keep engaged once your career is over and become a mentor and professional role model to this future profession.

www.financetreasury.com.au

CORPORATE TREASURE INSIGHT: WOMEN IN FINANCE // 23

WOMEN IN FINANCE Never has the role that women play in the workplace been so vocal and so important. The FTA is proud of its female members and the roles they hold across the finance and treasury industries, many of whom hold very senior roles in very large organisations.

Recognising the importance of a diversified workforce and the role that women play is a core focus of the FTA. This edition of The Exchange provides us with some unique insights into the worlds of two of our inspirational female members; Blaithnaid Byrne – Group Treasurer, AGL Energy and Stephanie Lowe – Trading Risk and Compliance Manager, GrainCorp.

24 // OUTLOOK

WOMEN IN FINANCE

`

BlAthnaid Byrne GROUP TREASURER - AGL ENERGY

Bláthnaid Byrne is the Group Treasurer at AGL Energy where she is primarily responsible for managing the Treasury function, including debt, banking relationships, investments and risk.

In her role, Bláthnaid arranges funding through a mixture of bank and capital markets transactions, including AGL’s inaugural Australian bond in 2014, the largest ever BBB corporate transaction in the A$ market. Prior to joining AGL, Bláthnaid worked in treasury functions across the travel, recruitment and healthcare industries in Australia and Ireland.

Bláthnaid holds a Degree in International Business with Languages from Dublin City University, the AMCT Diploma qualification from the ACT and an Advanced Diploma from the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants.

Describe your role at AGL. How has your previous experience culminated in your role there? What challenges have you faced?

I am responsible for managing the treasury function which includes public and private debt, investments, all of our lender relationships as well as financial risk management. When I reflect on the roles I have worked in, I can see a clear (though for the most part unintended) specialism in each role. I started out after university working at Baxter Healthcare as the Treasury Accountant for the European centralised treasury function in Dublin. This role gave me an excellent introduction to the complexities of managing a centralised treasury in a multinational company.

We were looking after the treasury activities for 44 European entities including their intercompany

positions with over 200 other global Baxter subsidiaries.

I would say the key takeaway in this role was global cash management, whether it was cross border sweeping, global netting or centralised zero balancing; all done through the use of some amazingly innovative bank products.

After arriving in Australia, I worked firstly with ANZ in Melbourne and then for a few months at JPMorgan in Sydney.

About a week before I was due to leave and head home to Ireland, I contacted a recruitment company to gauge the treasury market opportunities here. Coincidentally they themselves had an opening internally for the Regional Treasurer role and so I interviewed and got the role that same day – decision made!

In this role I focused on operations optimisation, looking at systems, cash management, processes, investments, risk management and inter-company funding.

Nearly three years into the role, I became restless. I felt I had made all the impactful changes I could, and the treasury was in a great shape. The company, however, wasn’t growing, and so no new challenges or changes were coming my way in the foreseeable future. So I took a role in the online industry, heading up the treasury team at Hotelclub, which is the Asiapacific arm of Orbitz, a US online travel company. The role was somewhat of a stop gap for me but it did give me some great retail focused treasury experience , like all the nuances of the credit card business not to mention the massive issue of credit card fraud. That aside, Foreign Exchange risk management was probably the biggest focus for this role. We had payments and receipts in 15 currencies, some of which weren’t easily traded currencies, such as Indonesian Rupiah, and Philippino Peso. Forecasting cash flow in 15 currencies was also a nice challenge…

At this point, I knew there was one notable gap in my experience, and that was debt. Working for US subsidiaries, you get experience in inter-company debt and the complexity

that brings such as tax and thin cap considerations, but no experience of issuing direct in the market. With that at the back of my mind, almost the entire time I was at HotelClub, I was also watching the job market; networking, etc. on the quest for a treasury role at a top ASX listed corporation. And then before my 2 year anniversary at HotelClub, a great opportunity came up at AGL energy as their Treasury Manager. I remember when I was interviewing, being told there wouldn’t really be a lot in the way of re-financing for some time. That was October 2009, within a year we had completed a USPP and the then Treasurer was retrenched when debt and equity were merged under the one Capital Markets umbrella. And being now the only treasury person left, I really had to step up. From that point, the debt floodgates opened, and I have been executing and managing all facets of debt since - from vanilla bank debt to export credit agency financing, on and off shore bonds, subordinated hybrid notes, project finance, CPI bonds... The company has grown substantially and as a result net debt has increased 10 fold.

Thankfully during that time, I have been able to increase the size of the team somewhat too...

What do you see as the key emerging economic trends from a domestic and global perspective? What are the challenges they present to Treasurers and how are you preparing to meet those challenges?

Globally, it seems to me there is almost a disconnect happening between the relatively stable economic events and the previously destabilizing effects of political and social turmoil, the likes of which we are seeing across Europe and the US. The very low market volatility is a good example of this. It is as if we are becoming less sensitive and reactionary to ‘bad news’, thereby softening its economic impact. Closer to home and specifically to the energy sector, the political uncertainty we have seen over the past decade and its impact on the sector still prevails, however the start of private sector initiative, leadership and commitment is starting to fill the political vacuum and create

the change needed now for lasting stability in the future.

Has technology changed the way you and your team operate?

If someone was looking for a career in Finance and Treasury, what are some of the pieces of advice you could give?

Of course, but interestingly enough for me the focus has been more on how technology has enabled better sustainability practices to be introduced to our operations. Some examples include digital business cards and digital signatures removing the need for hard copies, also soft copies of roadshow presentations on tablets instead of hoards of paper being lugged around. Actually for years any banks that have come into see us have been ‘encouraged’ not to bring paper presentations only soft copies emailed in advance. Now that we have a paperless office, it’s a mandate - no hard copies allowed!focus on supporting the business and execution of strategy.

Treasury has been a very rewarding career choice for me. If I had to give 3 career tips, in no particular order, I would say....

If given the opportunity to work overseas, take it. This is so important from a career but also personal development perspective Breadth of experience is more important than depth. Some people would disagree with this, and prefer to specialise in just one area, but personally I think you are better off trying out and learning about as much as you can in the first instance and then if you find something that really speaks to you, great, but at least you’re not focusing on something without knowing what else is out there.

The third is to network. It’s very easy to discern between those that are just giving lip service vs. those that are looking to make real connections, and in a niche area like treasury, real connections and relationships will really stand to you.

How have you managed your work/life balance in an everdemanding environment?

This is something i take very seriously for myself and my team.

I think flexibility is the key to allowing people to manage their work and home lives in tandem. We recently moved offices and now have a smarter working environment which has been very conducive to flexibility at work, one of the fundamental concepts being that you work wherever it makes sense for you on any given day.

The challenge with any technology solution is that while it makes operational matters more efficient, it usually requires adequate resourcing to maintain the solution, manage upgrades, and conduct periodic reviews to ensure the technology is still adequate.

As a result, my role is now more focused on system configuration, vendor management and periodic reviews to keep systems delivering a return on the investment made.

Our team are comfortable with technology and have various skills associated with technology solutions. This has been recognised within the organisation. I’ve used this recognition to have the team lead other technology projects for the broader finance and corporate departments and provide further value to stakeholders.

Has technology changed the way you and your team operate?

I have some very interesting overseas trips in the coming six months, so that is all the future planning I am focused on for now!

WOMEN IN FINANCE

Stephanie Lowe RISK AND COMPLIANCE MANAGER - GRAIN CORP

Stephanie Lowe has spent the spent the past five years navigating the world of treasury after eight years in financial institutions. Running the Trading Risk and Compliance team, her focus is on ensuring that GrainCorp has a clear picture of trading position and related currency exposure, but this lends to having a high level of interaction with the more traditional areas of Treasury; Funding and Liquidity and FX. Stephanie’s role involves a varied interaction with many stakeholders across the GrainCorp group to manage market data integration, automated interface of treasury related instruments and checks and balances on contract entry and execution for the trading business.

Describe your role at Grain Corp. How has your previous experience culminated in your role there? What challenges have you faced?

I lead the Risk and Compliance function which sits within the

Group Treasury for GrainCorp. GrainCorp is an international agribusiness company spanning the agricultural supply chain from storage, marketing and processing of grains and oilseeds.

We work closely with the funding and liquidity and FX functions of the Treasury team to report on position and currency exposure across our Marketing businesses and compliance of these positions against our policies. I joined GrainCorp after 8 years in financial institutions where I was involved in agricultural industry research and credit analysis of agribusiness corporates which developed my understanding of the risks faced by agribusiness companies through the industry dynamics, market volatility and weather related challenges.

Moving to GrainCorp gave me the opportunity to get firsthand experience of seeing the drivers of business growth within corporates. Sitting within a Treasury function

What do you see as the key emerging economic trends from a domestic and global perspective?

What are the challenges they present to Treasurers and how are you preparing to meet those challenges?

Business continues to operate in a low growth and low inflation environment coupled with a high level of uncertainty. In addition to the level of uncertainty, competition for corporates remains intense and the impact of technology and innovation on both individuals and corporates is about to reach another level as every day our understanding of the role of fintech, automation, big data and disruptors increases and ideas move from proof of concept into the mainstream.

These present both challenges and opportunities for treasury operations and require focus on the day to day activities to ensure that we continue to deliver for the business both in terms of providing relevant information but also assist in driving change and reducing complexity.

If someone was looking for a career in Finance and Treasury, what are some of the pieces of advice you could give?

allows for a rare view across the business and the role Treasury plays in helping facilitate business growth. With relatively limited exposure to a Treasury function prior to my role at GrainCorp, it was a steep learning curve, but with a function that has such a high level of interaction with other stakeholders, it gave me the opportunity to get across it quickly.

In addition to the daily reporting function, increasingly, time is spent providing guidance to proposed changes in policy in response to changing business requirements as well as helping the company respond to the growing regulatory requests.

For my team, but also the broader Treasury field, access to data and the integrity of the data is critical to our success. One of the major areas of growth in my role has been learning about the architecture of applications to optimise the interaction of data moving across applications as well as what information can be extracted to provide accurate and detailed information to facilitate decision making.

Whilst traditionally Treasuries have been structured to have a number of specialists, the move to leaner Treasuries has driven the increase in cross skilling across Treasury roles. However, I view this move to more generalists of critical importance to facilitate in bring together the whole picture.

Irrespective of the Treasury structure, centralised versus decentralised, bring together these different elements requires working with different stakeholders and a more in-depth understanding of your stakeholders role, constraints and challenges can help. Often Treasuries do see a situation with a slightly different lens and can aid the discussion, so thinking about how to deliver your message and who you need to bring along on the journey is also important. It goes without saying staying abreast of technical and regulatory changes is an important value add a treasury professional can bring to its company so engage in professional development as and when appropriate.

How have you managed your work/life balance in an ever-demanding environment?

Whilst working in Treasury there doesn’t seem to be a switch off button, the seasonal nature of the GrainCorp business means for my team that there are parts of the year which are busier because of our need to stay on top of the harvest and large execution of positions held by GrainCorp.

As a result, we try to structure our personal

30 // CORPORATE TREASURE INSIGHT: WOMEN IN FINANCE

commitments around this cycle. Through the quieter period, where the focus may be more around project work of process and system improvements, with the support of my manager and team I aim to ensure people are getting the breaks they need. Strong dialogue with my team, manager and family has been a very important part of managing your personal and work commitments ensure that you have some type of awareness of what is impacting people’s lives. And we have put time and effort into assessing what resourcing is needed to complete the critical tasks so that we don’t place individuals under undue stress. My manager and GrainCorp are very supportive of flexible hours and working arrangements that greatly assists managing commitments, unexpected events and everyday life.

Has technology changed the way you and your team operate?

Absolutely and I am excited about where it will take us. I am very focused on unlocking the value that exists within applications already and reducing the multiple touch points my team and colleagues deal with currently. Furthermore, I continue to explore existing tools in other areas to see what their application in the Treasury sphere will bring such as data analytics and middleware. I have actively encouraged my team to embrace the learning about how an application works and the configuration of an application to expand their skill set. It is important to embrace this technology as another tool in your arsenal.

The advent of cloud computing and online platforms has simplified touch points and the necessary support, but as Treasury professionals we need to remain aware of the risks this brings with it, particularly as treasurer users are the first point of contact and not place the responsibility with the traditional IT functions.

AT THE FOREFRONT OF

PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT

www.financetreasury.com.au

FINTECH SHOWCASE

FairDealFx What began as a sophisticated spreadsheet built to help out a friend that ended up saving her over $11k in one month has recently been launched as a web application bringing pricing transparency to the FX market at a price point that even small companies can afford. FairDealFx was built for companies who manage FX risk but do not have the budget to subscribe to Bloomberg or Reuters.

It is astounding that in a world where most information is now literally at your finger tips, the price of access to financial information has bucked the trend and increased over the last 15 years. Whilst large corporations can justify the cost of a data subscription, the same cannot be said for most small to medium sized enterprises. Likewise, Treasury Management Systems are also very expensive, which leaves those same companies using Excel. With highly-incentivised dealers on the other side of the transaction looking to meet budgets, not having access to information can be very costly for risk managers, although the costs are often not known.

FairDealFx was built by FTA Technical Committee member and Treasurer of Tatts Group, Cale Bennett. Here, we take a look at the functionality of the product.

The Elevator Pitch For finance people who manage FX risk for their business, FairDealFx provides price transparency and governance at low cost to enable them to get a better deal from their bank or FX provider, providing an expected ROI of over 500%.

Functionality FairDealFx’s functionality is best understood by splitting it into three areas - deal pricing, deal capture, and analytical insights.

The system was designed with user-experience in mind, which makes for a very shallow learning curve, a key differentiation point from most financial systems on the market today.

Deal Pricing FairDealFx feeds live data in to provide institutional-level pricing on FX spot, forwards, predeliveries, and historical rate

RISK MANAGEMENT // 33 rollovers. It currently covers AUDUSD, AUDEUR, AUDNZD, AUDGBP, and AUDJPY with more to come as requested by clients.

Whilst spot pricing can be found in various places on the internet, live forward prices are simply not available. FairDealFx delivers forward points, which due to the lack of information available have become a key revenue source for FX providers.

“We can’t make money in spot anymore, so we make it all in the forwards,” is a comment Cale has heard more than once in his conversations with FX dealers since launching FairDealFx.

FairDealFx takes this pricing functionality one step further to calculate pre-delivery pricing and historical rate rollover pricing as simply as choosing the existing deal and altering the maturity information. Historically, the complexity of calculating these prices has meant that end users simply accepted the pricing that was given to them.

Deal pricing within FairDealFx is done in an intuitive way, and when you have accepted your price from the FX provider you simply “Lock It In” to save it into the database.

Deal Capture Despite Excel being the genesis of the FairDealFx product and finance and treasury people using it as their go-to system, using Excel as a deal storage system has some key shortcomings.

In order to improve the governance of companies’ FX risk management program, FairDealFx has implemented a deal storage system that can best be characterised as a simple TMS. It is widely understood that 88% of spreadsheets have errors.

This creates an obvious problem for risk management as real financial decisions are being made from what is in the spreadsheet. Making changes in a spreadsheet is both incredibly easy and dangerous in this context. Version control is almost non-existent in Excel.

FairDealFx’s deal management system flows directly from pricing, which removes the step of inputting the deal details in Excel. Inputting the deal is as simple as hitting the “Lock It In” button. Once the deal is saved, you now have a list of deals that you can either export to Excel to work with, predeliver or extend.

Analytics and Insights When you mix deal capture and live pricing a world of possibility opens up. FairDealFx doesn’t waste your data, creating a number of actionable insights as you price the deal under a panel called “Fair Deal Facts”. The traditional approach of calling around for prices is replaced by the knowledge of whether you are getting a good deal immediately. This insight is created by the following calculations:

- The revenue your dealer is making from this transaction; - What your dealer’s margin is on the trade; and - An innovative calculation called FDPredict. Whilst this function is still in beta, it aims to predict what rate you should be offered based on your past dealings with your dealer.

The Product Roadmap While the FairDealFx team have managed to build a system that has the potential to save time and money for smaller treasury operations immediately, the product roadmap contains further enhancements that will continue to add more value. These enhancements include the following: • An extensive reporting suite, including share of wallet reporting to enable you to improve the holistic conversations you are having with your bank; • Further enhancements to the deal capture functionality to build it out to something closer to a simple treasury management system; and • Enhancements to FDPredict to enable it to predict the rate you should get not only on your data, but anonymised data from across the market.

From the Creator “We built FairDealFx to bring the transparency that I have working for an institutional customer to the small-to-medium enterprise market. The results we are seeing from our early uptake are very encouraging, including one customer who managed to improve her margin by 269 points on a trade. Being in the dark on pricing puts SME’s at a distinct disadvantage at execution of their FX risk management program. We aim to bring them into the light.” - Cale Bennett Conclusion FairDealFx provides a product previously the domain of corporates with deep pockets and large treasury programs.

If you’re transacting more than $5M in FX per year and are managing risk using forwards, you should check it out, risk free by taking the Free 30 Day Trial at https://fairdealfx.com.au.

To celebrate the launch of FairDealFx, they have decided to give away a free t-shirt to FTA members. Head over to https:// fairdealfx.com.au/fta-shirt to get yours!

34 // PARTNER DIRECTORY

CONFERENCE 2016 - PRINCIPAL PARTNERS

Building on a proud 180-year banking heritage, ANZ is an international bank with a unique footprint. With headquarters located in Melbourne, ANZ is a top 4 bank in Australia, the largest banking group in New Zealand and the Pacific, a leading bank globally on the Dow Jones Sustainability Index (DJSI), and among the top 25 banks in the world. We provide a range of banking and financial products and services to over 9 million institutional clients and retail customers. www.anz.com

We are committed to building lasting partnerships with our customers, shareholders and communities in 34 markets worldwide, with offices in Australia, New Zealand, throughout Asia and the Pacific, and in the Middle East, Europe and America. ANZ aims to be the best bank in the world for clients driven by regional trade and capital flows. We provide unique access and insights through on-the-ground presence in 15 Asian markets and 12 Pacific countries.

The Commonwealth Bank is Australia’s leading financial institution, with total assets of more than $A755 billion (as at 30 June 2015). The Group is ranked the 10th largest bank in the world by market capitalisation (Bloomberg, as at 12 February 2016) and is one of the largest companies on the Australian Securities Exchange.

Through a disciplined approach to credit and market risk management, the Bank maintains a AA- credit rating (Standard & Poor’s, as at 12 January 2016). Our Institutional Banking and Markets division provides capital raisings, risk management and transactional banking solutions to the Group’s institutional clients.

www.commbank.com.au/institutional

Capabilities in markets include foreign exchange, interest rate, commodity and fixed income products. The division’s approach is underpinned by rich analytics, insights from industry experts, innovative technology and a deep commitment to building long-lasting relationships.

For more than 150 years NAB has been helping customers with their money.

With more than 35,000 employees, serving 10 million customers at more than 800 locations across Australia, New Zealand and around the world, NAB aims to make a difference by being a responsible, inclusive and socially innovative bank.

www.nab.com.au

As Australia’s largest business bank, NAB works with small, medium and large businesses to help them start, run and grow. NAB also funds some of Australia’s most important infrastructure projects including schools, hospitals and roads.

Westpac Institutional Bank (WIB) delivers a broad range of financial services to Commercial, Corporate, Institutional and Public Sector customers with connections to the Australian, New Zealand, Asian, European and US markets.

WIB operates through dedicated industry relationship and specialist product teams, with expert knowledge in transactional banking, financial and debt capital markets, specialised capital, public private partnerships, broking and alternative investment solutions.

www.westpac.com.au/corporate-banking

We combine market and industry insights with a deep understanding of our customers to provide solutions that maximise efficiency, provide transparency and free up working capital whilst mitigating risk. Our experienced team take a supply chain perspective of our customer’s business, providing innovative risk and financing solutions designed to add value to our customers and their strategic trade counterparts business.

PARTNER DIRECTORY // 35

CONFERENCE 2016 - SUPPORTING PARTNERS

www.moodys.com

Moody’s Investors Service is a leading provider of credit ratings, research, and risk analysis. Moody’s commitment and expertise contributes to transparent and integrated financial markets, and the firm’s ratings and analysis track debt covering approximately 120 sovereign nations, 11,000 corporate issuers, 21,000 public finance issuers, and 72,000 structured finance obligations.

Bloomberg, the global business and financial information and news leader, gives influential decision makers a critical edge by connecting them to a dynamic network of information, people and ideas. www.bloomberg.com

www.thomsonreuters.com

The company’s strength – delivering data, news and analytics through innovative technology, quickly and accurately – is at the core of the Bloomberg Professional service. Bloomberg’s enterprise solutions build on the company’s core strength: leveraging technology to allow customers to access, integrate, distribute and manage data and information across organizations more efficiently and effectively.

Our unique combination of custom content, easy connectivity and robust community is why over 440,000 professionals in 150 countries do business with us every day.

Move from insight to action - Through our market-leading Thomson Reuters Eikon, Elektron and Risk Management solutions, we help our customers generate superior returns, improve risk and compliance management, increase access to liquidity, and create efficient, reliable infrastructure. Wiith our open and innovative platform, we support the world’s most complex financial services firms in dealing with their top business challenges.

Establishing trust. Delivering satisfaction.

Energy companies, investment firms, brokerage houses, industrial conglomerates, global corporations, and the largest global banks all trust us to support and enable their most crucial financial decisions. Our mission is to drive customer growth and innovation with our trusted unified platform – enabling the industry to discover, transact, and manage risk. We anticipate market shifts and evolve to meet them.

S&P Global Ratings, a division of S&P Global Inc. (NYSE: SPGI), is the world’s leading provider of independent credit risk research. We have more than 1 million credit ratings outstanding on government, corporate, financial sector and structured finance entities and securities.

www.spglobal.com

With approximately 1,400 credit analysts in 26 countries, and more than 150 years’ experience of assessing credit risk, we offer a unique combination of global coverage and local insight. Our research and opinions about relative credit risk provide market participants with information that helps to support the growth of transparent, liquid debt markets worldwide.

36 // PARTNER DIRECTORY

CONFERENCE 2016 - EXHIBITORS Visual Risk is a leading treasury and software vendor for corporates and financial institutions. Combining deep treasury expertise with innovative technology, we deliver a distinctive brand of forward-looking risk analytics, asset liability management, hedge accounting and treasury & cash management software. This enables treasuries and management to improve efficiencies and simplify their risk and compliance complexities. www.visualrisk.com

www.deloitte.com.au

The Visual Risk system is a unique suite of treasury modules which can be implemented individually and integrated with existing third-party systems, or as a fully integrated front-to-back office treasury system. Deployed via the Cloud or locally, we can deliver a system best suited to your organisation.

Deloitte is the brand under which thousands of professionals collaborate across a network of offices in Australia to provide audit, economics, financial advisory, human capital, tax and technology services. Deloitte Australia is committed to growth, client service and its people, and the company continues to invest in innovative new services, products and people, while expanding its business through acquisitions, alliances and organic growth.

Deloitte ranked number one employer for accounting and financial management graduates, and leads the Big Four, in Top 100 Graduate Employers 2016, a survey undertaken by The Australian and GradAustralia.

ETOS Limited provides middle and back office treasury support to a wide range of Australian and New Zealand organisations.

A team of experienced treasury professionals ensures ETOS clients maintain a best practice framework of controls and procedures to manage their treasury risk and compliance. ETOS’ strength comes from its flexibility to tailor services to meet the clients specific needs. No two ETOS clients are the same! ETOS addresses many challenges faced by Treasurers and Finance teams:

www.etos.co.nz

• Lack of in-house experience • Key person risk • Segregation of duties • Business continuity • Cost Efficiencies • Regulatory compliance Veda Credit Ratings is an Australian Credit Rating Agency that specialises in providing corporate credit ratings and counterparty risk intelligence. As a leading provider of credit ratings on mid-market corporates to support critical business decisions across the finance, insurance, corporate and public sectors (including project and infrastructure finance), corporates are increasingly using Veda’s issuer-based ratings to strengthen market perceptions and to support funding and finance activities.

www.veda.com.au

Whether you are looking for an issuer or counterparty rating, and/or a public or private assessment, Veda Credit Ratings provides highly credible, comprehensive and authoritative reports that stand up to public and political scrutiny.

SWIFT is a global member-owned co-operative and the world’s leading provider of secure financial messaging services. We provide our community with a platform for messaging and standards for communicating, and we offer products and services to facilitate access and integration, identification, analysis and financial crime compliance Our messaging platform, products and services connect more than 11,000 banking and securities organisations, market infrastructures and corporate customers in more than 200 countries and territories enabling them to communicate securely and exchange standardised messages in a reliable way.

www.swift.com

As their trusted provider, we facilitate global and local financial flows, support trade and commerce all around the world; we relentlessly pursue operational excellence and continually seek ways to lower costs, reduce risks and eliminate operational inefficiencies. Headquartered in Belgium, SWIFT’S international governance and oversight reinforces the neutral, global character of it’s cooperative structure.

SWIFT’S global office network ensures an active presence in all the major financial centres.

PARTNER DIRECTORY // 37

CONFERENCE 2016 - EXHIBITORS

www.fisglobal.com

FIS offers a leading liquidity and risk management solution for corporations, insurance companies and the public sector. The solution suite includes credit risk modeling, collections management, treasury risk analysis, cash management, payments system integration, and payments execution delivered directly to corporations or via banking partners. The solutions help consolidate data from multiple in-house systems, drive workflow and provide connectivity to a broad range of trading partners including banks, SWIFT, credit data providers, FX platforms, money markets, and market data. The technology is supported by a full range of services delivered by domain experts, including managed cloud services, treasury operations management, SWIFT administration, managed bank connectivity, bank onboarding, and vendor enrollment.

Marsh is a global leader in insurance broking and risk management. www.marsh.com.au

Marsh helps clients succeed by defining, designing, and delivering innovative industry-specific solutions that help them effectively manage risk.

Curve Securities currently assists over 400 institutions to place more than $5.5bn in funds. Our clients have access to rates from over 60 banking institutions and a wide range of fixed interest securities and benefit from the “specials” we negotiate on their behalf. www.curvesecurities.com.au

www.fitchratings.com

Thanks to our personalised service and cutting edge Portfolio Management Platform, we save our clients countless hours every year.

Fitch Ratings is a leading provider of credit ratings, commentary and research.

Dedicated to providing value beyond the rating through independent and prospective credit opinions, Fitch Ratings offers global perspectives shaped by strong local market experience and credit market expertise.

The additional context, perspective and insights we provide has helped investors fund a century of growth and make important credit judgments with confidence.

Reval is the leading, global provider of a scalable cloud platform for Treasury and Risk Management (TRM). Our cloud-based offerings enable enterprises to better manage cash, liquidity and financial risk, and to account for and report on complex financial instruments and hedging activities. www.reval.com

The scope and timeliness of the data and analytics we provide allow chief financial officers, treasurers and finance managers to operate more confidently in an increasingly complex and volatile global business environment. With offerings built on the Reval Cloud Platform companies can optimize treasury and risk management activities across the enterprise for greater operational efficiency, security, control and compliance. Founded in 1999, Reval is headquartered in New York with regional centres across North America, EMEA and Asia Pacific.

OpenLink is the global leader in Transaction Lifecycle Management software for the commodity, energy and financial services industries. OpenLink’s products address portfolio management, corporate treasury, trading, risk management, and operations processing for both financial and physical assets.

www.openlink.com

OpenLink is a global business that has grown both organically and through strategic acquisitions, to achieve revenues in excess of $300 million. It serves over 500 clients, including 12 of the world’s largest commodity and energy companies, 9 of the largest financial institutions, and 13 of the largest central banks. OpenLink has 1,200 employees in 14 global offices on five continents.