Participants and facilitators of ANZ’s two-day workshop on ‘Understanding Treasury Management’ at Holiday Inn Suva on Wednesday. Photo: JONA KONATACI
By RANOBA BAOA
Fijian businesses are no different from other businesses world over and are exposed to risks, sometimes beyond a treasurer’s control.
Therefore mitigating these risks are imperative.
A two-day workshop which concluded on Wednesday organised by ANZ targeted the idea of helping 26 participants counter risks presented on a daily basis.
The workshop was facilitated by Treasury Training Services Pty Limited director and principal trainer Ivan St Clair from Australia.
ANZ Head of Global Markets Pacific Arjan Roukema said the focus was to deliver a course with very practical examples and practical user cases around monetary treasury management.
“The funding of a company to raise funds for investments and capital expenditure is an important factor and many think liquidity,” Mr Roukema said.
“So if you have incoming streams with the goods that you sell and outgoing streams for the purchases that you do, how you do make sure that you actually always have sufficient cash to pay for it.”
This, he said, was the crucial role done in any typical treasury.
Additionally, Mr Roukema alluded to another important part of the course on financial risk management.
Treasury management
Mr Roukema said: “As a company, typically you would be exposed to what we call financial market risks.
“Some of the these risks are for instance foreign exchange risks so this is risks from the movement of currencies like for instance the Fijian Dollar against the US Dollar.
“Another example is interest rate risk. So if you take on a loan for instance you have to pay interest but the interest rates are not always the same they change over time.”
The Fijian market
Mr Roukema said teaching the course gave Fiji’s growing entrepreneurship sector better insights to manage and mitigate risks unlike in recent times.
“One of the things we have been consistently developing in the Fijian market is specifically around the management of risks,” he said.
“We see a lot of the companies are exposed to these financial risks and historically these risks were not proactively managed.
“But from what we’ve seen over the last years and definitely what this course has been contributing to is a much better understanding.
“This is through knowledge of what these risks actually are, how these risks impact their business and what sort of instruments are available to manage these risks.”