International developments keeping the ACT busy

The ACT's first Middle East Deals of the Year Awards Dinner held in Dubai was attended by 130 professionals from the GCC. Qatar Telecom won the Deal of the Year Award and Etihad Airways was awarded Treasury Team of the Year for the Middle East.

This rounded off a successful year for the ACT in the region. In the last year the ACT and its many supporters in the region have established a series of treasury networking events and the ACT has also taken its training and qualifications to Dubai. This has been achieved despite difficult economic conditions and recent events do not make life easier for companies in the region. However, we firmly believe that treasury qualifications remain an essential objective.

We are now working on plans to extend ACT’s activity in the Middle East – these will see the CertICM tuition school held in Dubai in early 2010, increasing student numbers and further links to help ACT deliver to its Middle East network and students. For more information on ACT Middle East visit www.actmiddleeast.org

The International Group of Treasurers (IGTA) met in Paris a few weeks ago. The priorities and focus of this organisation has never been better with a strong commitment to professional treasury education. The ACT has agreed to lead a working group to define the key areas of focus for treasury qualifications that the IGTA can promote across its network. Interest from other national treasury associations in ACT’s education programme remains strong and we will see the ACT and AFP in America working to increase recognition for treasury qualifications.

The annual dinner, in London, was once again a huge success with 1,300 attending and an insightful view of the new world put forward by Vince Cable MP. Funds raised for the ACT’s new charity of the year – WellChild – and ACT’s Educational Trust exceeded £30,000 so a big thank you to all who contributed.

The ACT breakfast meeting to discuss non-bank financing options was a sell out. M&G, Bunzl, Ernst & Young, Barbara Ridpath, International Centre for Financial Regulation (ICFR) and many members of the audience contributed to an excellent discussion that ranged from public markets and ratings to private placement markets and even bank loans.

The ACT team is well advanced with its plans for the Annual Conference in Manchester (27–28 April 2010). We have responded to feedback last year and this key event will be held over two action filled days. There is an early bird discount that expires on 23 January – so take advantage of this offer and book now at www.treasurers.org/annualconference

The ACT is joining with Mercer to conduct a survey to better understand how treasurers are approaching today’s important pensions issues. Results will be made available to all those who participate and are scheduled to be published to coincide with ACT’s Annual Conference. The survey will only take a few minutes to complete and is available at www.uk.mercer.com/ACTsurvey

The debate about how governments deal with the banking sector rages on. There is a clear pattern of remedies emerging:

• More capital – including CoCo’s
• Greater / better / internationally co-ordinated regulation
• Living wills – including effective ring fencing of deposit taking activities from riskier proprietary trading desk.

There is no doubt that we need a combination of these measures – but we must not put too much store in any one. We believe that our members see too big to fail (TBTF) banks as convenient but not essential. If all of these measures can be pressed home effectively the risks posed by TBTF banks may be brought back to acceptable levels.

One cloud that has emerged recently is the international community’s failure to agree on how we should proceed with the amendment to IAS 39 – fair values. Let’s hope this is a timing issue as otherwise it does not bode well for global bank regulation.

And we still see storm clouds on the horizon over OTC derivatives regulation.

More cheerfully, The ACT’s new training facilities at 51 Moorgate are now fully operational and feedback from students is excellent. We have just successfully completed the first run of our brand new Practical Treasury Management course which is aimed at those joining treasury and wanting to rapidly move up the learning curve. The 2010 Training Programme is now available. In response to demand and participant feedback, we have developed three new courses for next year: Advanced Cash Management, Corporate Treasury for Bankers and Pensions for Treasurers. See www.treasurers.org/training for the full list of courses.

By Stuart Siddall