Beyond Gap
Issue 9 - February 2009
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In this issue: * Client list continues to grow * Basis Point Sensitivity Report - Available Now * General Ledger - Coming Soon
Key features of Visual Risk™ * Superior balance sheet projection * Optimal strategy selection * Powerful risk analytics including Value-at-Risk * Flexible interest sensitivity and stress testing * Effortless treasury and balance sheet reporting
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Level 5, 66 King Street Phone: Fax: E-mail: Web: |
Visual RiskTM; is recognised as one of the leading Asset-Liability Management solutions for Financial Institutions, Government Bodies and Finance Companies. Our periodic newsletter, ‘Beyond Gap', aims to keep you informed of relevant system and market developments.
MyState Financial – from an outsourced solution to in-house use of Visual Risk
In 2007, the merger in Tasmania of Connect Credit Union and Island State Credit Union posed
many challenges, not least of which was to thoroughly reassess treasury operations and
importantly, Asset-Liability Management processes. Previously, all treasury and market risk
related activities were managed through a mix of spreadsheets and an out-sourcing arrangement
with a specialist provider of risk management services.
Given the increased size and sophistication of the newly merged entity it became clear that the
building of in-house expertise, combined with the use of Visual Risk, would provide the best
possible solution for MyState Financial.
"The decision to implement Visual Risk was initially made in order to achieve several key benefits, most notably:
1) To provide management with a means of preparing risk management reports;
2) To support the creation of an in-house risk management function;
3) To enable the efficient calculation of Value-at-Risk; and
4) To provide "what if" analysis for ALCO and senior management
I believe Visual Risk has delivered on these key benefits."
Dean Morris, Manager Financial Development,
MyState Financial Credit Union
In today’s volatile environment ever more pressure is being applied by regulators for ADI’s to better manage and measure their risk. Visual Risk empowers your financial institution to secure its future by bringing the Asset-Liability Management process in-house.
Orange Credit Union gains greater insights into interest rate risk management challenges ahead
Orange Credit Union (‘OCU’) was a participant in last year's Annual Interest Rate Risk Management Survey. Following the results of that Survey, OCU sought to increase their understanding of some the challenges that they face and invited Visual Risk to provide follow up reporting and training to their Board members.
"Using their proprietary software and its ability to present information in easily
digestible graphical charts, Visual Risk was able to give our Board members a unique and
fresh perspective on OCU’s interest rate risk. I feel that the training provided by Visual
Risk allowed our Board to gain a much better understanding of how interest rate risk affects
the Credit Union’s performance and most importantly how the current interest rate
environment is impacting us."
Gavin Cook, Corporate Services Manager,
Orange Credit Union
Visual Risk eases Arab Bank Australia’s transition to IAS 39 compliance
Many financial institutions are still experiencing issues relation to compliance with IAS 39 hedge accounting and reporting under IFRS 7. Visual Risk recently completed a successful implementation of our IAS 39 module for Arab Bank Australia.
"As part of our recent process of implementing hedge accounting in line with AASB 139, we needed
to implement a new software solution that would allow us to assess our interest rate swaps,
apply hedge effectiveness testing and document them into AASB139 compliant hedge relationships.
We assessed the available software solutions and at the end of that process we selected Visual Risk
as being the most appropriate system for Arab Bank Australia. I am happy to report that within one
month of implementation we successfully completed our conversion to hedge accounting. The Visual Risk
team brought an enormous amount of expertise to the table and most importantly, they were able
to work closely with our auditors to ensure that the project was a success."
Bernard Buncle, Chief Financial Officer,
Arab Bank Australia
Visual Risk remains the leading IAS 39 hedge accounting solution for financial institutions available today. We continue to meet the new challenges that the Standard presents and we are assisting a greater number of clients than ever before in transitioning to IAS 39 compliant hedge accounting.
CBS Canterbury added to growing list of NZ based Visual Risk clients
Visual Risk welcomes our latest New Zealand based user, CBS Canterbury (‘Canterbury Building Society’).
Visual Risk now enjoys a client base of 12 users in New Zealand, making it one of the most commonly
installed treasury systems in the country.
"Our client base in New Zealand continues to grow with the signing of our most recent new user,
CBS Canterbury. Our geographical footprint is spread throughout the North and South Island
including Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch and Dunedin. We look forward to continuing to
service our expanding number of NZ clients."
Ellena Mylonas, Business Development Manager,
Visual Risk
Please contact us for client testimonials and click
here
for a full client listing.
Visit us at the AMI Conference in Canberra
As one of Australia and New Zealand’s leading providers of treasury and asset-liability management
solutions Visual Risk re-affirms its commitment to the Mutuals sector by again exhibiting at the
Annual Australian Mutual Institute Conference in Canberra, Australia. If attending, please keep
an eye out for our booth:
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Visual Risk – Annual Interest Rate Risk Management Survey
The Visual Risk Annual Interest Rate Risk Management Survey is run in
October each year and is provided free to our clients (with a small charge
applied for non-clients who wish to participate).
We would like to thank those who participated in last year’s Survey and we
do hope that you found the results to be useful. In this period of increased
volatility it is of heightened importance to have third party verification of
your internal models and a robust comparison with the performance of your peers.
Please contact us if you would like to discuss the results from the Survey or to
benchmark your institution’s interest rate risk against your peers.
Our Treasury & Asset-Liability Management solution continues to rapidly evolve with a host of new features being added on a regular basis.
Basis Point Sensitivity Report – now available
The shape of the current yield curve is raising concerns regarding the impact
of the various tenors on the risk inherent in any interest rate book. The stressful
economic conditions have highlighted the limitations of the delta sensitivity or
sensitivity to the Net Present value for a parallel shift of one basis point to
the yield curve. To enhance the best practice in risk reporting Visual Risk has
released its new Basis Point Sensitivity Report which shows sensitivity to the
market value for each point on the yield curve. Some of the key features of this report are:
Ability to focus either on a particular product group or the aggregated book.
Highlights the sensitivity to a tenor on the yield curve.
The customised report writer allows the generation of user-defined reports that are exportable to MS Office applications using a simple cut and paste method
Credit Risk Module – now available
Close scrutiny of counterparty credit risk has become a critical task for treasuries.
Visual Risk has responded by making significant enhancements to its Credit Risk Module
that enable users to dynamically track these risks as derivative valuations rapidly
change in volatile markets.
The system now provides the following enhanced capability:
Total Credit Exposure is calculated on an instrument type and sub-type basis and separated into PCE (potential credit exposure) and mark-to-market value components.
The calculation of PCE can be defined by the user or by each instrument type and sub-type. PCE’s can be calculated based on complex user-defined formulae.
The customised report writer allows the generation of user-defined reports and graphs that are exportable to MS Office applications for easy and quick reporting.
General Ledger Module – coming soon
The new General Ledger module eases the process of posting treasury accounting
entries to your accounting system and provides for far greater data transfer
integrity. This robust platform ensures efficiency gains are maximised, and user
error is minimised through a seamless and automated process.
The key features of the module are:
Chart of accounts including the ability to import.
A granular account mapping function for mapping accounts to relevant month-end accounting outputs.
Consolidated accounting processing feature to quickly generate multi-portfolio, multi-currency accounting output.
Export of accounting output for import by various accounting systems.