Category

Compliance

Cash & Working CapitalComplianceTax
October 22, 2020

Cash Pooling: What Treasury Teams at Multinationals Need to Know Now

An update of a story—one of NeuGroup’s most-read articles—about physical and notional cash pooling. By Susan A. Hillman, Partner, Treasury Alliance Group LLC Eight months into the global pandemic, liquidity and cash remain top-of-mind for many multinational corporations coping with uncertainty over the shape and timing of economic recovery. That makes this an opportune time to reexamine a critical liquidity management tool that has been around for decades but has always required careful evaluation before implementation: cash pooling. Further due…
Justin Jones
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ComplianceRisk Management
August 6, 2020

When an Auditor Puts on the Consultant’s Hat

How much and when should internal auditors report about projects outside of their audit plan? Internal audit is increasingly being called upon to get more involved in nontraditional types of engagements—projects that don’t fall within the scope of the audit plan. These might include counsel, advice, facilitation, data analytics and automation. From company to company, managing these projects varies, according to members of NeuGroup’s Internal Auditors’ Peer Group. In a recent virtual discussion with IAPG members, the question was whether they…
Antony Michels
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Accounting & DisclosureComplianceCOVID-19Treasury Management
June 4, 2020

Smooth Sailing: One Investment Manager’s Painless Adoption of CECL

Taking a qualitative approach and doing no discounted cash flow calculations produced a calm CECL debut for at least one investment manager.At a recent NeuGroup meeting, the only investment manager whose company adopted the new accounting standard for estimating credit losses in the first quarter described a relatively painless process, giving comfort to some of his peers. The meeting, sponsored by BlackRock, included a presentation by Aladdin on FASB’s current expected credit losses (CECL) methodology. Aladdin offers risk management software…
Ted Howard
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ComplianceFunctional
June 4, 2020

Differing Opinions About Audit Opinions

Internal auditors use a variety ratings or opinions for their reporting, despite a trend of not using them.There is a growing trend of internal audit departments moving away from using audit opinions, or ratings, to rate the progress of a mitigation effort. The idea is to focus on the audit issue itself and mitigate it. Despite this trend, many auditees and audit committee members are happy with the current system and push back against suggestions to get rid of ratings.Following…
Ted Howard
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ComplianceRisk Management
May 12, 2020

ERM’s Profile Rises as Boards Focus on Risk Oversight Role

Corporate boards are taking their oversight mandate more seriously; that’s why they need ERM. Today’s corporate boards need to fully understand the risks a company faces as well as their relevance to its strategy and risk appetite. That’s been the case since 2009 when the SEC started requiring disclosure of a board’s role in risk oversight, including the qualifications of its members and a description of how the board administers its oversight function. The risks revealed by COVID-19 make this…
Antony Michels
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Capital MarketsCompliance
February 20, 2020

Margin Bells Will Soon Toll for More Pension Funds

Pension funds need to prepare for margin rules covering the OTC derivatives they use. Corporate pension fund managers may soon have initial-margin responsibilities for the over-the-counter (OTC) derivatives they use to manage those funds, even if their parent companies are exempt. Background. Following the financial crisis, global regulators established variation and initial margin rules for OTC derivatives to provide greater transparency into counterparty risk. Those requirements first became effective in 2016 for financial firms with more than $3 trillion in…
Antony Michels
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Cash & Working CapitalComplianceTechnology
February 4, 2020

Supply Chain Finance Faces Rising Regulatory Scrutiny

Founder’s Edition, by Joseph Neu Making sense of calls to increase debt classification and disclosure requirements for reverse factoring. I received an email recently from a consultant giving me a heads-up about a potential financial reporting change that could adversely impact the multibillion-dollar market for supply chain finance. Extended payables vs. debt. At issue is the ability of companies to use a financial intermediary to pay suppliers at a discount while extending their payments terms to the suppliers (sometimes in…
Antony Michels
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ComplianceRegionalSenior ExecutiveTax
January 15, 2020

What China’s Individual Income Tax Changes Mean for Corporates, Expats

CFOs with employees in the country need to plan for new residency rules and ensure compliance. The most significant reform of China’s individual income tax (IIT) laws in 38 years has numerous implications for foreign workers and the multinational corporations that employ them. Michelle Zhou, a partner at KPMG, presented many of the critical elements of the changes to a group of CFOs at a recent NeuGroup meeting in Shanghai. Big picture. CFOs—who are responsible for income reporting—need to proactively…
Antony Michels
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ComplianceRegionalSenior ExecutiveTaxUncategorized
January 15, 2020

China’s Corporate Social Credit System: What Corporates Need to Know and Do Now

The implications and challenges for corporates facing a new world of ratings. Full implementation of China’s corporate social credit system (SCS) is slated for the end of 2020—a reality with huge implications for multinationals doing business in the country. And that means more work for many CFOs and finance teams. CFOs are often in charge of coordinating the final reporting of data provided by multiple areas of the company and ensuring there is no conflicting information. They’re also responsible for…
Antony Michels
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Accounting & DisclosureComplianceTreasury Management
January 6, 2020

CECL Important for Nonfinancial Companies, Too

Nonfinancial corporates extending credit must also prepare for CECL. Calendar year companies must apply new accounting for credit losses at the start of the year, in Q1 2020 financial statements, and that includes nonfinancial corporate creditors engaged in a variety of transactions. The Financial Accounting Standards Board’s new current expected credit losses (CECL) methodology replaces the incurred-loss method, which recognizes losses when they become probable. CECL, instead, requires lenders to recognize credit losses expected over the life of a loan…
Ted Howard
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