We recently brought together a community of innovators and industry leaders, including retailers, manufacturers, financial institutions, insurers, telcos, fintechs and tech providers at FTT Embedded Finance & Super Apps. We gathered to delve into the technologies, innovations and trends that are re-defining the future of how financial services are crafted and distributed.
Lisa Moyle, VC Innovation’s Chief Strategy Officer and Co-Founder, took the opportunity to speak with Barry McCarthy, Founder and Head of Embedded Hedging at Assure Hedge. Assure Hedge has developed a OTC hedging platform and marketplace for FX Brokers and financial institutions. Their mission is no less than transforming the way businesses access hedging products through technology and a Hedging-as-a-Service (HaaS) solution.
Barry has over 20 years of experience in futures and financial trading in leading financial institutions, having worked for companies like Casimir Trading Systems, Blue Water Financials, Marex Spectron, Geneva Ireland Financial Trading and UBS before founding Assure Hedge almost seven years ago.
In this exclusive interview, Lisa and Barry discuss what embedded hedging means, how FX trading can be accessed by companies of all sizes, and how a marketplace valued at upwards of US$1 Trillion per day creates the opportunity to embed a product that can address the FX risk of end-users conducting businesses cross border at the very moment they need it.
Barry decided to start Assure Hedge at the time that Brexit was decided “I was really affected by the Brexit outcome, particularly by the story of how this affected mushroom producers in Ireland” He added “They supply to all UK supermarkets, but there are few providers. Their costs are in euros, as they are in Ireland, but their income is in GBP, as they source to the UK” He explains that when the result of the Brexit referendum was announced, the value of GBP collapsed, leading to the collapse of seven out of ten of those mushroom producers, simply because of a move in the currency. Barry decided to use his skills and knowledge in the financial markets to create a platform that could help everyday businesses mitigate their risk.
“Protecting against currency it is really easy” He added “However, it is really complicated and time consuming to even get an account open with traditional financial institutions, and that is why everyday small businesses choose to do nothing to protect themselves against currency risk” He explains that it should be as simple as purchasing an insurance product.
Assure Hedge solves this problem by broadening access to those crucial products: “We decided to do something very ambitious, to build a platform that would digitalize the products and deliver them to SMEs through channels they are already using, which is also the beauty of embedded finance.”
To learn more about embedded hedging and Assure Hedge, watch the video below:
The next edition of FTT Embedded Finance & Super Apps will take place digitally on 21st September 2022 (North America) and live as part of the Fintech Talents Festival on 14th and 15th November 2022 at The Brewery, London. Save the dates!
