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PwC LLP Partner Chris Matten highlights the benefits of this new strategic alliance: "With Visual Risk we can deliver a broad range of consulting and outsourcing services to all sizes of business, with full support from a global network of treasury and market risk experts," he says. "This cost effective service is underpinned by the latest treasury solutions developments and best practice techniques made available by Visual Risk. It means we can provide clients with a full range of services covering all aspects of risk analysis - from specialised 'at-risk' modeling and 'stress testing', to seamless fully outsourced middle and back office treasury services."

Gold Partnership provides unparalleled access to Microsoft in terms of support, training and new releases. Visual Risk remains committed to leveraging these benefits to further enhance its solutions and the end-user experience.

May 2011 - Visual Risk featured in Risk Magazine
Visual Risk Managing Director Richard Hughes has recently been interviewed by Risk Magazine for their article 'The risks of a rising dollar'. It highlights the need for companies to focus on their risk management and hedging strategies in the light of unprecedented risk in the AUD and broader markets. Click here to read the article.

May 2011 - Article: IFRS 9 Under the Hood - An Introduction

This article discusses some of the proposed changes to the IFRS 9 hedge accounting standard. The first section focusses on the broad implications for risk management policy in relation to the objective of hedge accounting as defined in the Standard. The second section discusses accounting for option time value. Please click here to read this article, the first in a series that will focus on IFRS 9 as it is being finalised over the coming months.

April 2011 - New component: Target@Risk™ introduced to enhance our Reporting Dashboard

Visual Risk today introduces Target@Risk™, another best-of-breed risk component.

Target@Risk™ builds on the strength of our existing risk capabilities and adds the ability to monitor and stress test potential cashflow variances relative to specific treasury targets or your budget. It can be applied to reduce potential variances to acceptable levels and deliver cashflow certainty to your business. Target@Risk™ introduces another best practice management metric to help your treasury monitor and mitigate market risk.

Target@Risk™ can be viewed through our powerful Reporting Dashboard which analyses portfolio data from within the treasury system and then publishes the outputs with clear visual representations for boardroom reporting. It is a key strategic tool for business management and risk mitigation and can graphically report:

The Visual Risk Reporting Dashboard delivers the most advanced treasury solution available today, providing treasuries with the ideal tool for decision making and boardroom review.

February 2011 - Visual Risk announces new data agreement with ThomsonReuters and ICAP

We are pleased to announce that Visual Risk has recently partnered with ThomsonReuters and ICAP to provide our clients with a new, fully integrated market data solution. This partnership brings together two best-of-breed services to automatically deliver data directly into your Visual Risk system.

This service significantly streamlines otherwise time consuming data upload processes and ensures a far greater degree of data integrity.The data available covers interest rates, FX and commodities. It also includes difficult to obtain prices such as currency basis swap rates, basis spreads and volatilities.

January 2011 - New Functionality Focus: Cash Management

Visual Risk now includes a powerful new cashflow forecasting function which leverages our native cashflow engine to generate accurate forecasts combining treasury and non-treasury cashflows. Features include:

This development once more illustrates our commitment to the continuous improvement of Visual Risk.

November 2010 - New Client focus: Fonterra - the challenge of quantifying dairy price risk

Based in Auckland, Fonterra Co-operative Group Limited is a New Zealand multinational dairy co-operative owned by more than 10,500 New Zealand farmers. The company is responsible for around 30% of the world's dairy exports and is New Zealand's largest company with revenue exceeding NZ$16 billion.

Fonterra's earnings are heavily exposed to movements in the international price for milk and milk related products. Recently, the commodity risk management team at Fonterra embarked on a project to quantify and concisely report the annual variance in 'total milk revenue' in USD and NZD terms.

Hamish Keston, Commodity Risk Analyst, Fonterra, explains some of the project objectives and challenges: "The starting point of any risk management activity is to accurately understand your exposure and quantify the risk associated with it. Building on this basis you can then make informed decisions on the strategies and approach that you will take. Fonterra obviously has a large exposure to dairy price risk but understanding the nuances of this is a complex task that requires the right tools"

Visual Risk was selected by Fonterra as the engine to regularly perform their multi-factor Cashflow-at-Risk analysis.

October 2010 - Visual Risk signs 8 new clients

We are pleased to announce yet another successful quarter with Visual Risk selected by the following clients to help manage their treasuries:

This once more confirms Visual Risk's growing popularity with treasurers across Australia and New Zealand.

July 2010 - Another milestone for Australasia's most popular treasury system

Visual Risk has just achieved a major milestone by signing up our 100th client. From startup in 2001, we set out to fill a void in the market by developing our distinctive brand of forward-looking interest rate, FX and commodity risk analytics. Since then, demand from our users has stimulated a rapid diversification into asset liability management, hedge accounting and treasury management. This has delivered a unique blend of integrated treasury solutions which have proved highly popular with treasurers and risk managers across this region.

Visual Risk is a dynamic company and continues to expand fast. We attribute much of this success to our deep understanding of the local market, commitment to constant innovation and proactive engagement with our clients to develop the functionality they need.

The achievement of this 100-client milestone now clearly confirms our position as the foremost provider of treasury systems in Australia and New Zealand.

June 2010 - Visual Risk signs up 5 new clients

For most companies, 2009 will long be remembered as their most challenging year in recent times. Many had hoped the worst was over but market volatility is now on the rise again with corporate treasuries being forced to tighten their belts and do more with less. It is in this tough environment that the demand for treasury solutions has intensified with Visual Risk being uniquely placed to meet this demand with our broad suite of functionality.

We are very pleased to announce that Visual Risk has recently been selected by the following blue-chip clients:

Our client base now includes many of the leading companies in this region.

May 2010 - New Functionality Focus: Enhanced Balance Sheet Modelling for Asset Liability Managers.

Visual Risk has developed a significant set of enhancements in relation to our forecasting and budgeting capabilities. These enhancements will deliver even greater flexibility with respect to the modelling of projected product balances and customer behaviour, flowing right through to the potential impact of net interest earning. The planned enhancements include:

This development once more illustrates our commitment to the continuous improvement of Visual Risk.

February 2010 - SBS Bank selects Visual Risk for ALM, Treasury Management & IAS 39 Hedge Accounting

Established in 1869, SBS Bank (Southland Building Society) is New Zealand's largest building society and officially received bank registration in October 2008. SBS Bank offers a wide range of banking services and products, including transactional banking, phone and internet banking, investments, residential and commercial lending, managed funds, agribusiness, consumer finance and insurance.

Visual Risk is pleased to announce that after an extensive evaluation process SBS Bank has selected Visual Risk to deliver an integrated risk and treasury platform. Michael Potter, Asset & Liability Manager at SBS Bank, explains the reasons for their decision:

"With the growth of our business and SBS Bank's recent acquisition of full banking registration status, it had become clear that it was necessary to beef up our risk and treasury management processes to bring them in line with current best practice. At the same time, we also needed a solution for complying with the onerous requirements of IAS 39 hedge accounting. In our search for a software solution it was therefore preferable that we find something that was equally competent in Asset-Liability Management, Treasury Management and IAS 39 Hedge Accounting. There were many other vendors out there with strengths in one or two of these areas but Visual Risk was really the only vendor that could cost effectively bring all three functions together in a single integrated software platform."

January 2010 - New Functionality Focus: General Ledger Integration

Visual Risk now includes a seamless and fully-automated GL Integration module to quickly and easily generate treasury accounting entries for direct upload to accounting systems. The module includes:

This development once more illustrates our commitment to the continuous improvement of Visual Risk.

October 2009 - PricewaterhouseCoopers New Zealand selects Visual Risk as the core system for their new Treasury Outsourcing business

We are pleased to announce that PricewaterhouseCoopers NZ has selected our fully integrated suite of Risk, Treasury Management and IAS Compliance modules to underpin their new Treasury Outsourcing business.

PwC New Zealand is now able to offer a full suite of integrated treasury management solutions ranging from tailored risk analysis and board reporting to back-office outsourcing based on the most advanced treasury system of its kind. The service can now deliver mid-sized companies the powerful functionality of the full Visual Risk system at a fraction of the cost of an inhouse system along with the backing of PwC's team of dedicated treasury specialists.

"PwC's selection of Visual Risk once more confirms our position of market leadership in this region" says Richard Hughes, Managing Director. "Together with PwC, we hope to continue revolutionising the way businesses manage their treasuries in New Zealand"

PricewaterhouseCoopers Partner Paul Skillender highlights the benefits of this new strategic alliance: "With Visual Risk we can provide a full range of outsourcing and consultancy services to all sizes of business, with full support from a global network of treasury and market risk experts," he says.

"This cost effective service is underpinned by the latest treasury solutions developments and best practice techniques made available by Visual Risk. It means we can provide small and medium sized clients with a full range of services covering all aspects of risk analysis - from specialised 'at-risk' and 'stress testing', to seamless fully outsourced middle and back office treasury services."

For further information, please visit http://www.visualrisk.com/media/PWC_NZ_Treasury_Outsource.pdf.

October 2009 - Aurora Energy selects Visual Risk to provide a fully integrated front-to-back office solution

We are pleased to announce that Aurora Energy has selected Visual Risk to provide a fully integrated front-to-back office solution including Risk Analytics and Reporting, Compliance (IAS 39 / IFRS 7) and Back-Office.

Based in Hobart, Tasmania, Aurora Energy is a Tasmanian Government-owned electricity distribution and retail company. The company provides service to more than 255,000 Tasmanian customers as well as to business customers in New South Wales, Victoria, South Australia, the ACT and Queensland. An expansion in treasury activities and business growth meant that Aurora needed a Treasury Solution to replace a legacy treasury system and myriad of existing spreadsheets. After a lengthy vendor evaluation process, Visual Risk was selected as the best solution to manage their treasury and accounting activities.

"We required a system that would integrate with our existing treasury management and hedge accounting processes while offering improvements in risk reporting. External consultants were used to assess the available software solution and after stringent levels of testing they concluded Visual Risk would be the best-fit system to meet the requirements of Aurora Energy.

"An important consideration during the assessment process was to identify a solution that could provide IAS 39 hedge effectiveness testing and documentation for our interest rate and FX hedges. Given that we needed a solution in place by June 30th, with the implementation scheduled to start in late June, this presented an added challenge. Visual Risk were able to load our entire portfolio and have IAS 39 compliant documentation in place within one week, successfully completing that part of the implementation within a very tight timeframe. This was done with minimal staff disturbance which was particularly refreshing during a busy time of year.

"The Visual Risk software caters very well to Aurora Energy's treasury needs and integrates nicely into our processes and procedures. Additionally the support is proactive and knowledgeable. Overall our confidence in Visual Risk, the software and the staff is very high."

Bradley Hope - Senior Finance Analyst Aurora Energy Limited

May 2009 - The Tatts Group selects Visual Risk

We are pleased to announce the Tatts Group has selected Visual Risk to provide a fully integrated front-to-back office solution including Risk Analytics and Reporting, Compliance (IAS 39 / IFRS 7), Treasury Management / Back-Office and General Ledger Integration.

Based in Melbourne, the Tatts Group is a provider of diversified gambling services and generates more than $3 billion revenue per annum. It accounts for more than half the lottery tickets sold in Australia.

An expansion in treasury activities due to recent acquisitions and business growth has meant that the Group needed a Treasury Solution to replace a myriad of existing spreadsheets. After a lengthy vendor evaluation process, Visual Risk was selected as the best solution to manage their treasury and accounting activities.

The Group viewed the core system functionality and the exceptional level of client support offered by Visual Risk as the key considerations during the system evaluation process.

March 2009 - Visual Risk extends Outsourced Consultancy Services

Visual Risk has extended the range of outsourced services it offers to cover:

• Compliance Reporting (IAS 39 and IFRS 7)
• Risk analysis and reporting
• Derivative valuation

Having worked closely with clients and the Big 4 accounting firms over many years, Visual Risk has developed a deep expertise with IAS 39 hedge accounting. We are now able to offer the benefits of that experience through an outsourced service to provide all necessary IAS 39 and IFRS 7 compliance documentation.

In addition, Visual Risk also offers a Risk Analysis service to value your derivative positions and quantify the future market risk inherent to your portfolios. This analysis can assist senior management to better understand and optimally manage the market and hedging risk faced by their companies.

Through cost-effective Visual Risk outsourcing, your onerous Risk and Compliance reporting processes can be streamlined and the burden on your treasury operations eased.

A new entrant to the treasury technology market An article about Visual Risk by James Cornell, Treasurer, Arlington Securities, Treasury Management International Magazine UK - July 2007 Edition

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