FiREapps Unveils Industry First On-Demand Foreign Exchange Management Platform


New Features Extend Dynamic Visibility to Streamline Exposure Management and Reduce Risk

SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. — April 9, 2007 —  FiREapps™, the leading provider of corporate foreign exchange management technologies, today launched FiREapps 3.5, offering a host of advanced corporate finance features never before available in a Software as a Service (SaaS) application. FiREapps 3.5 is the first web-based, fully integrated corporate foreign exchange management solution to help global organizations make informed and proactive decisions to lower foreign exchange volatility, ease the burden of regulatory and policy compliance and achieve significant time and cost savings. With FiREapps 3.5, global corporations now have a powerful new tool that provides enhanced visibility into foreign exchange exposures and optimized and cost effective exposure management recommendations.

“Never before have global organizations had an advanced web-based application to easily aggregate multiple silos of foreign currency information to enable streamlined global exposure visibility and optimized exposure management,” said Wolfgang Koester, CEO of FiREapps. “FiREapps 3.5 is a highly sophisticated foreign exchange management platform built from over two decades of experience working with a broad range of global organizations and brings together unique foreign exchange risk management capabilities that improve predictability, efficiency and compliance at a time when increased financial transparency is critical to businesses. With FiREapps 3.5, companies can now increase their understanding of foreign exchange impact on global operations and effectively prevent earnings surprises due to complexity of and volatility of foreign exchange.”

Today’s global organizations are facing extreme pressure to maintain profitability. However, few organizations have achieved best practices for foreign exchange management to mitigate the risk of earnings due to unforeseen currency fluctuations. For most companies, data is often scattered throughout various business divisions in numerous locations and must be gathered and manually keyed into spreadsheets. In addition to time and resource concerns, using spreadsheets to calculate exposure opens companies up to adverse economic and compliance impacts due to the high probability of error which inhibits them from making optimal exposure management decisions.

“FiREapps provides a single, powerful system with advanced exposure analytics which allows us to view all our foreign exchange information in one snapshot that, in the past, could only be had by making numerous calls to all of the various subsidiaries and entities of the company,” said Timothy M. Winston, vice president and treasurer for Paxar. FiREapps has given us the tools to manage our foreign exchange risk more effectively and make the most optimal exposure management decisions in real time. Data that used to take days and weeks to collect and analyze now takes us a matter of seconds.”

With the launch of FiREapps 3.5, FiREapps effectively bridges the risk management gap and eliminates foreign exchange exposure headaches. FiREapps evaluates current foreign exchange exposures and provides optimized decisions to reduce those exposures. Through the use of automation, comprehensive analytical capabilities and patent pending Decision Management Technologies, FiREapps allows treasury organizations to eliminate the impact of currency volatility, reduce transaction cost and improve compliance in a fraction of the time it used to take.  FiREapps extends this approach by adding new advanced foreign exposure risk management capabilities including:

 

  • Web-based exposure analytics and trend reporting to enable frequent foreign exchange exposure assessment and adjustments

  • Web-based portal access and decision management workflows that increase communication and enhance transparency

  • Cost efficient internal banking and exposure netting to reduce exposures and costs

  • Advanced drill-down exposure analysis ensures decisions and risk reduction actions are based on accurate exposure data, risk management policies and operational constraints

  • Automated exposure data extracts from leading ERP and G/L systems to reduce manual data entry and related data integrity errors

  • FAS 52 compliance reporting for monitoring configuration of leading ERP and G/L systems to ensure appropriate and complete setup for currency remeasurement

  • Integration with foreign exchange trading platforms to streamline transaction management activities with financial institutions

 

“The software industry has embraced SaaS; SaaS will become an even more important element of software delivery strategies, as customer demands and satisfaction play an integral role in the development of SaaS solutions and ecosystems,” says Erin TenWolde, senior analyst for IDC’s Software as a Service program. “FiREapps further demonstrates that the SaaS delivery model can be employed to help address corporate finance needs and solve customer pain points.”

 

Pricing and Availability

FiREapps 3.5 is available now, priced on a subscription basis based on the needs and requirements of the customer

About FiREapps
FiREapps, a subsidiary of Rim-Tec, Inc., is the leading provider of Corporate Foreign Exchange Management Technologies. The company provides technologies and services that help corporations optimize foreign exchange processes. These solutions help customers mitigate risk while increasing profitability and operational efficiencies. FiREapps has offices in Scottsdale, Arizona and Portland, Oregon.

Contact:

Dara Sklar or Michael Kellner

Schwartz Communications

415-512-0770

fireapps@schwartz-pr.com