Patent Application
20100138356
A portion of the disclosure of this patent document may contain material which is subject to copyright protection. The copyright owner has no objection to the facsimile reproduction by anyone of the patent document or the patent disclosure as it appears in the Patent and Trademark Office patent files or records, but otherwise reserves all copyrights whatsoever.
Business entities, e.g., banks, enter into a large number of transactions in the ordinary course of their operations. Some of these transactions carry financial risks such as currency or foreign exchange (FX) risks, commodity price risks, interest rate risks, stock price risks, and counterparty risks, to name a few. For example, a securities instrument bears the risk of loss through a drop in prices. As another example, an increased or decreased value of the USD relative to the Euro affects foreign exchange (FX) risks in transactions involving those currencies.
To mitigate these risks, a business may invest in “hedging instruments” whose behavior counterbalances risks presented by financial transactions. Risk exposures presented by a first, typically numerically large, set of instruments are counterbalanced by performance of a second, typically much smaller, set of hedging instruments, such that when risk rises with respect to the instruments that present the risk exposures, risk falls in the hedging instruments. For example, a “forward security sale” is a special instrument that allows a business to sell a securities position to a counterparty in the future for a fixed price.
A set of instruments may be grouped and treated as a single exposure that is to be hedged; one or more hedging instruments counterbalance the exposure group. The exposures or exposure groups and their corresponding hedging instruments are grouped into corresponding hedging relationships. A hedging relationship associates one or more particular hedging instruments with a particular exposure or exposure group. Accordingly, use of hedging relationships aids in management of risk exposures and corresponding hedging instruments and facilitates compliance with hedging policies or regulations.
A company that invests in a hedging instrument to secure a risk of an existing investment (“hedge management”) may account for the profit and loss of both instruments so that they cancel each other out. This is called “hedge accounting” and is governed by generally accepted accounting principles such as Financial Accounting Statement (FAS) 133, Accounting for Derivative Instruments and Hedging Activities, promulgated by the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB), or International Financial Reporting Standard (IFRS) 39, Financial Instruments: Recognition and Measurement, promulgated by the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB), and/or the business's internal policies.
Different accounting rules like these may yield different profit or loss results given the same data. For example: suppose a business made two purchases:
Under Accounting Rule 1:
Under Accounting Rule 2:
Different accounting rules may apply to hedged assets versus non-hedged assets. Available computer applications aid in generating hedge accounting data and organizing and managing risk exposures, hedging instruments, and hedging relationships. At the top level, the Treasury Ledger (TRL) explains the position accounts of treasury products such as securities bonds, loans, and options. Within the TRL, Valuation Areas present different views of the same data to reflect how a treasury product or business transaction profit depends on the underlying account regulation (e.g., IFRS 39, FAS 133). Returning to the above example, then, a user might create two Valuation Areas within the TRL: one for Accounting Rule 1, and the other for Accounting Rule 2.
At the lowest level of existing applications, a Position is a group of stocks or financial positions that carries the values of the asset it represents. That is, the current value per date (“valuation”) is computed at the Position level according to rules stored in the position's management procedure. A position is the smallest unit in a TRL that may be valuated or managed independently; it is defined by fixed or variable terms that unambiguously identify that position. For example, Accounting Code, Valuation Area, Valuation Class, Product Type, and Security or Transaction ID might be fixed terms, so that any difference in these attributes definitely denotes separate positions. On the other hand, Security Account, Security Account Group, Portfolio, and Lot ID might be variable terms, so that their differentiating effect on positions may be set or customized by the user. Business transactions (such as purchases, sales, transfers, or dividend payments) under a given set of accounting rules are represented by Flows. The valuation of a position is based on the sums of flows related to that position.
Now suppose that, on Sep. 2, 2008, XYZ's accounting department executes a valuation with key date Aug. 31, 2008, to determine and disclose the value of the positions on that date. Suppose that the accounting rule for Valuation Area 001 requires taking the spot price, currently 80 EUR per share, of the security as the valuation basis. Suppose further that the accounting rule for Valuation Area 002 requires taking the closing price on August 31, which was 81 EUR per share, of the security as the valuation basis. The resulting position flows are shown in
The resulting position values are shown in
Continuing the above example, suppose that on Sep. 15, 2008, XYZ sells the 10 units of STOCK_A in Security Account SEC_ACCT1 at 100 EUR each. This sale would trigger the creation of additional flows (derived flows) to adjust the position values and to account the profit or loss from the sale. That is, a profit/loss flow is created for each affected position. The resulting position flows are shown in
The resulting position values are shown in
But suppose, for example, that XYZ now hedged 8 of the 10 stocks in SEC_ACCT2. As noted above, different accounting rules may apply to some or all of a position depending on, for example, which stocks within the position are hedged. In this example, then, future business transactions may have different effects on the 8 hedged stocks than on the 2 non-hedged (freestanding) stocks, even though all 10 stocks are in the same position. However, existing applications do not differentiate between hedged and non-hedged assets when applying accounting rules.
Thus, a system is needed to manage and valuate the hedged portions of a financial position separately from the freestanding portion if only part of a position is hedged. For accurate accounting, financial instruments may not be moved to a separate account if hedged or used as a hedging instrument. Moreover, the combined value of the hedged and freestanding portions of a position must equal the total value of the position. Also, the user must be able to view the hedged and freestanding parts of a position value both as one value and as separate values. Finally, to facilitate compatibility with existing systems and business processes, the treatment of financial positions as positions in the system must not change.
Embodiments of the present invention enable users to direct different accounting rules to hedged assets than to freestanding assets by creating a new entity called a “subposition” that identifies a portion of a position. Subpositions are cumulative in that the sum of the values of a subposition component equal the value of the corresponding position component. Thus, hedged and freestanding portions may be independently managed and valuated while allowing operative actions (e.g., sales, purchases, valuations) to continue to run on a position level.
Embodiments of the present invention relate to a solution for managing and valuating financial instruments using cumulative subpositions. Embodiments of the present invention direct different accounting rules to hedged and freestanding assets, as applicable, while maintaining the cumulative values of each corresponding position component. Thus, subpositions may be independently managed and valuated without affecting the treatment of financial positions as positions. Example embodiments of the present invention further allow the user to view the hedged and freestanding parts of a position value both as one value and as separate subposition values.
In example embodiments, each subposition holds the master data that identifies a portion of the position. For example, a subposition may identify a portion of a position as relating to a hedging instrument, a hedged item, or a freestanding item, and it may hold all hedging-related information about that portion of a position.
In example embodiments, subpositions are associated with certain value components, such as the number of units, consolidated security gains or losses, consolidated FX gains or losses, hedge adjustment, fair value hedge, and cash flow hedge. In example embodiments, the subpositions are “cumulative”: that is, the sum of the component values of the subpositions within a position equals the component value of that position. For example, if Position 1 contains Subposition A and Subposition B, then the number of units in Subposition A plus the number of units in Subposition B equals the number of units in Position 1. Since subpositions are cumulative, valuation areas and positions remain unaffected. In an embodiment, the TRL provides links to the subpositions.
In example embodiments, each flow maps through one position to one subposition; subpositions do not overlap, and each flow is assigned to a single subposition. If a flow is not assigned to any subposition, then it is assumed to affect the freestanding subposition. Each flow holds information concerning the subposition to which it is assigned.
For purposes of illustration, the below example embodiments of the present invention largely concern stock price risk. However, the embodiments may be used for other purposes as would be evident to one of skill in the art. For example, embodiments of the present invention may manage or simulate all kinds of risks, such as financial risks including foreign exchange risk, interest rate risk, commodity price risk, stock price risk and counterparty risk.
The system may be programmed to manage and valuate hedged, hedging, and freestanding assets according to relevant accounting rules, for example as summarized in steps 201-204.
In step 201, the user enters a hedged item (such as stock) purchase in the system, for example as described above and shown in
In step 202, the user enters a hedging instrument (such as a forward securities sale) purchase in the system. Continuing the example above, suppose that on Sep. 22, 2008, to hedge part of Position 2, XYZ concludes Transaction #37, a forward securities sale which allows it to sell 8 units of STOCK_A at 90 EUR each on Dec. 22, 2008. The forward securities sale appears as one position per valuation area in the position list, as shown in
In step 203, the user creates a hedging relationship in the system between the hedged item (for example, the stock position) and the hedging instrument (for example, the forward securities sale). The user may designate some or all of the hedged item as hedged, leaving the remainder freestanding.
b illustrates step 203 with respect to the above example. Since transaction #37 allows XYZ to hedge 8 units of STOCK_A in SEC_ACCT2 (Position 2), XYZ would a create hedging relationship in Valuation Area 001 with Transaction #37 as the hedging instrument and STOCK_A in SEC_ACCT2 as the hedged item. XYZ would then designate 8 of the 10 units in Position 2 as related to hedging instrument Transaction #37. In an embodiment, the hedging relationship ID (HRel #), hedged item ID (HItem #), hedged instrument ID (HInstr #), and Available Units fields may be auto-populated based on, for example, other information entered into the form.
In example embodiments, designating hedged units triggers the creation of separate subpositions to maintain the freestanding and hedged parts of the hedging instrument and hedged item:
These subpositions are shown in
d shows the resulting position values. As is evident by comparing
In an example embodiment, an additional button in the position list links to a subposition display for a position.
f shows the corresponding subposition display for the position shown as
Note that the hedging relationships created in Valuation Area 001 do not affect the positions in Valuation Area 002, since the positions in Valuation Area 002 do not coincide with the hedged positions in all relevant differentiation criteria. (In this case, for example, Valuation Area 002 does not differentiate by securities account.) This allows the valuation areas to continue to operate under entirely separate accounting rules.
In step 204, the system valuates all hedged, hedging, and freestanding assets (for example, at the end of an accounting period such as a fiscal quarter), each according to the appropriate accounting rules.
From the foregoing description, those skilled in the art can appreciate that the present invention may be implemented in a variety of forms. For example, the above embodiments may be used in various combinations with and without each other. Therefore, while the embodiments of the present invention have been described in connection with particular examples thereof, the above embodiments are for illustration purposes only and are not meant to limit the scope of the present invention. Other modifications will become apparent to the skilled practitioner upon a study of the present application.
This application is related to U.S. patent application Ser. No. 12/199,775, filed Aug. 27, 2008, entitled “System and Method for Exposure Management.”
