SunGard Study Reveals Gaps in Financial Risk Management Methods Among Corporations

Accurately measuring and effectively managing exposure to financial risk is of utmost importance to a corporate treasurer. Failure to do so can lead to consequences from embarrassing headlines to large financial losses. In spite of this, many companies continue to use spreadsheets to perform essential analysis such as short term cash forecasting (65%) and monitoring of counterparty trading limits (45%). Using spreadsheets to perform complex risk management tasks can expose a process to fraud, the potential for non-compliance with basic accounting principles, and in some cases, human errors that have cost companies millions of dollars.

To address the need for improved operational risk management, a treasury management system (TMS) can provide companies with sophisticated risk analysis capabilities, in addition to performing global cash management and compliance tasks.

Paul Bramwell, senior vice president of treasury solutions at SunGard’s AvantGard business unit, said, “This study shows that although 87% of firms have a risk framework established within their organizations, many are reliant on manual processes which can leave a firm vulnerable to errors. The use of treasury technology can automate and enhance oversight while helping to improve efficiency and reduce potential for errors.”

About SunGard’s AvantGard
SunGard’s AvantGard is a leading liquidity and risk management solution for corporations, insurance companies and the public sector. The AvantGard 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. AvantGard 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 on-boarding, and vendor enrollment. For more information, visit www.sungard.com/avantgard

About SunGard
SunGard is one of the world’s leading software and technology services companies. SunGard has more than 17,000 employees and serves approximately 25,000 customers in more than 70 countries. SunGard provides software and processing solutions for financial services, education and the public sector. SunGard also provides disaster recovery services, managed IT services, information availability consulting services and business continuity management software. With annual revenue of about $4.5 billion, SunGard is the largest privately held software and services company and is ranked 480 on the Fortune 500. For more information, please visit www.sungard.com