Sungard Treasury Releases ProFX App, Giving Treasurers A First Step For STP

CALABASAS, Calif.--Sungard Treasury Systems has launched ProFX, a Microsoft Windows-based foreign exchange trading application for corporate treasurers that is intended to serve as the first step in a straight through processing (STP) set-up.

As FX trading volumes grow, the demand for more sophisticated trading technology on the corporate treasury side is expanding, says Gary Bishop, president of Sungard Treasury Systems. Noting that FX trading volumes are almost 100 times the volumes of the New York Stock Exchange, Bishop says corporations have an ever-increasing need for FX services as their businesses expand overseas and are affected by the global markets.

The ProFX package, which recently became available, provides treasury managers with an integrated system for the entry, monitoring, confirmation and settlement of FX trade activities, including spots, forwards, swaps and options. With ProFX, users can produce trade confirmations, monitor current contracts and exposures, watch and analyze currency positions, perform mark-to-market calculations and generate accounting reports and payment instructions.

ProFX also provides treasury staff with the tools to manage currency risk by consolidating FX positions, thus assisting in the decision process when mitigating exposures, say Sungard officials.

The system allows corporates to integrate the P & L of trades and positions; ProFX feeds the trade confirmations from a bank into a corporate general ledger application. The system is available as a standalone package or integrated with Sungard Treasury Systems' ResourceIQ2 and ICMS/TS treasury systems.

"We make software that allows a corporate to have its own technical competence to use with any financial institution," says Bishop. The corporate can then choose where it wants to route its orders.

Sungard officials claim that the integration of ProFX and the other Sungard Treasury products brings new capabilities to the corporate treasury market. It was very difficult, if not impossible, to find a treasury systems provider supplying the functions of ProFX integrated into other treasury systems, the officials claim.

ProFX was beta-tested at more than 12 corporate sites before the general release, says Mike Radin, director of product development for ProFX, ResourceIQ2 and ICMS/TS.

In a related matter, Bishop was recently named president of the company (TTW, March 29). He joined Sungard Treasury as chief operating officer when it was formed last year by the merger of ADS Associates' ResourceIQ division and Multinational Computer Models (MCM) (Institutional Trading Technology, July 24, 1998). Later that year, Sungard Treasury Systems acquired ICMS International, a treasury management systems provider, last autumn (ITT, October 2, 1998).

Bishop oversaw the combination of ResourceIQ, MCM International and ICMS. Bishop reports to Greg Pond, group CEO of Sungard Treasury Systems and CEO of ADS Associates. Sungard Treasury Systems is a unit of Sungard Data Systems.