14. Defining Currency Pairs

In the foreign exchange markets, the exchange rates for some currency pairs such as the USD-GBP or USD-JPY are easily obtainable, since these are frequently traded. The exchange rates of other currencies such as the ZAR-INR (South African Rand - Indian Rupee), which is not traded very often, is determined through a third currency. This third currency is usually the US dollar, since the US dollar is quoted in all trading centres.

In the Currency pair definition screen, you define the static attributes of currency pairs for which a regular market quote is readily available. For other pairs, which do not have a regular market quote, you need to specify the third currency through which the system should compute the exchange rate.

This chapter contains the following section:

14.1 Currency Pair Maintenance

This section contains the following topics:

14.1.1 Maintaining Currency Pair

The currency pair screen is maintained at the bank level by your Head Office branch using the ‘Currency Pair Maintenance’ screen.

You can invoke this screen by typing ‘CYDCCYPR’ in the field at the top right corner of the Application tool bar and clicking the adjoining arrow button.

System Features

From among the currencies maintained in the currency screen, the system builds all possible combinations of currencies in pairs. For example, if you have maintained the following currency codes: USD, YEN. The system will give you a choice of defining parameters for the following pairs.

It is however, not obligatory to define parameters for all these pairs. A currency pair needs to be maintained only if:

In the absence of a direct exchange rate, the system will look for a through currency to compute the rate. If a ‘through currency’ has not been maintained then the default local currency will be picked up as the through currency to compute the rate for a currency pair.

Currency Pair

Maintenance Country

Specify the country code for which the currency pair is maintained. Alternatively, you can select the country code from the option list. The list displays all the authorized and open country codes along with their description maintained in the system.

For example, if you maintain the country code for a bank or a branch, which is operating in Singapore for the currency USD, then you should specify the country code as SG. The system defaults the field ‘Country’ as US.

Maintenance Country Name

The system displays the name of the country for which the currency pair is maintained.

Currency Pair

A currency pair (specified as Currency1 and Currency2, in the Currency Pair screen) represents the two currencies for which you need to maintain exchange rates.

To specify the pair, choose from the list provided against Currency1. Select the pair for which you want to maintain parameters.

The pair should be selected according to the quotation method followed by the market, which could be direct or indirect (for details refer to the field ‘quotation method’). Exchange rates can be defined for currency1 against currency2 or currency2 against currency1.

The descriptions of the respective currencies are displayed below.

Through Currency

If the exchange rate for a particular currency pair is not to be maintained, specify the ‘Through Currency’ via which the exchange rate between the currencies should be calculated.

To maintain a through currency for a currency pair, check against the box ‘Through Currency’.

Then choose from the list codes provided against Code, Select the currency code, which you want to specify as the ‘through currency’. The exchange rate for the currencies involved in the pair will be calculated using the through currency.

Note

For more details on the manner in which Oracle FLEXCUBE handles the Euro, refer the chapter ‘Handling the Euro’ in this manual.

Whenever, you define a through currency for a currency pair, you will not be allowed to specify the following for the pair:

Quotation Method

This is the method to be followed for quoting the exchange rate. There are two methods direct and indirect.

In the Direct method the exchange rate for the currency pair is quoted as follows:

Buy rate = mid rate - buy spread

Sell rate = mid rate + sell spread

Ccy 1 = Rate x Ccy 2

In the Indirect method the exchange rate for the currency pair is quoted as follows:

Buy rate = mid rate + buy spread

Sell rate = mid rate - sell spread

Ccy 2 = Rate x Ccy 1

Example

The market follows the direct quote convention for the currency pair USD-DEM e.g., 1USD=1.6051DEM. To maintain this pair, you would specify currency 1 as USD and currency 2 as DEM, and specify “direct” in this field.

For the USD-GBP pair, which is quoted indirectly (1 GBP = 1, 5021 USD), the USD will be defined as currency 1 and the GBP as currency 2, with the quotation method “indirect”.

Number of Units

This indicates the number of units of currency to be used for currency conversion

Spread Definition

You need to indicate the method in which the spread for a currency pair needs to be defined. There are two ways of defining the spread -- in points and in percentage.

The effective spread can be calculated using any of the following two methods:

The method of spread definition that you specify here applies to two instances:

14.1.1.1 Specifying Points Multiplier

Points are the smallest unit of measurement in the exchange rate of a currency pair. If you have opted for a points system of defining spread, you should specify the multiplication factor for the points to compute effective spread.

Suppose for the currency pair USD-DEM your rates are as follows:

Mid-Rate: 1.6045

Buy rate: 1.6040

Sell rate: 1.6051

The effective buy spread is 0.0005 (1.6045 - 1.6040) and the effective sell spread is 0.0006 (1.6051 - 1.6045).

In the Rates screen, where you define rates and spreads for a currency pair, you can specify the buy and sell spreads as 5 and 6 instead of as 0.0005 and 0.0006 (i.e., as spread points), and specify here the points multiplier as 0.0001.

The effective spread, buy and sell rates are then computed as follows:

Effective buy spread = Buy spread x Points multiplier = 5 x 0.0001 = 0.0005

Buy rate = Mid rate - Buy spread = 1.6045 – 0.0005 = 1.6040

14.1.2 Viewing Currency Pair Summary

You can view the summary details of currency pair in the ‘Currency Pair Summary’ screen. You can invoke this screen by typing ‘CYSCCYPR’ in the field at the top right corner of the Application tool bar and clicking on the adjoining arrow button.

 

In the above screen, you can base your queries on any or all of the following parameters and fetch records:

Click ‘Search’ button. The system identifies all records satisfying the specified criteria and displays the following details for each one of them: