Atlar and HSBC Innovation Banking Collaborate to Support Fast-Scaling Companies Like Joint Customer Liberis
This is a press release from our partner, Atlar New integration gives companies like Liberis real-time visibility and control over treasury, directly within the Atlar platform Atlar and HSBC Innovation Banking UK have entered into a collaboration to support the treasury management needs of fast-growing and innovative companies. The partnership brings together HSBC Innovation Banking UK’s global banking infrastructure and Atlar’s modern treasury platform to streamline cash management, enhance visibility, and improve control for finance teams operating at scale. A connected, real-time treasury stack for high-growth companies Joint customers of HSBC Innovation Banking and Atlar benefit from a more connected, automated, and real-time treasury setup—fully integrated with modern ERP systems where needed. Going beyond a standard connection, this partnership unlocks a seamless solution powered by real-time APIs. Atlar’s API integration with HSBC Innovation allows customers to connect their accounts in minutes—accelerating onboarding and making treasury management more efficient. Key benefits include: Liberis: Automating treasury for an embedded finance pioneer One company already realising the value of this partnership is Liberis, a global embedded finance platform that provides personalised funding solutions to small businesses through its network of partners. With operations in Europe and North America, Liberis has funded over $2.5 billion to more than 60,000 small businesses since 2007. By connecting its HSBC accounts to Atlar, Liberis has gained real-time visibility across cash positions and streamlined key treasury workflows like payment runs and cash flow forecasting—freeing up its finance team to focus on strategic decision-making. The platform plays a central role in managing liquidity and ensuring control across entities. “With Atlar and HSBC Innovation Banking, we’ve built a treasury setup that gives us real-time visibility, better control, and the flexibility to support our growth across markets.” — Sean Fanning, Finance Director at Liberis “This collaboration brings together the best of both worlds: HSBC Innovation Banking’s global banking capabilities and Atlar’s modern treasury technology. Together, we’re helping fast-scaling companies automate manual processes and gain the visibility they need to scale with confidence.” — Joel Nordström, Co-founder and CEO at Atlar “At HSBC Innovation Banking UK, we work with some of the most ambitious and innovative companies in the world. Partnering with Atlar enables us to offer our joint customers a more seamless and efficient treasury experience, with real-time connectivity and automation at its core.” — David McHenry, Head of Treasury and Trade Solutions at HSBC Innovation Banking UK The collaboration reflects a shared commitment to supporting businesses with the tools and infrastructure needed to operate efficiently and grow with confidence. Together, Atlar and HSBC Innovation Banking are helping finance teams navigate increasing complexity and take control of their treasury. For more information about how Atlar works with HSBC Innovation Banking UK, get in touch. About Atlar Atlar is the modern treasury management system for the new economy — giving scaling finance teams real-time visibility and control through a single platform connected to their banks and ERPs. By managing these connections, Atlar accelerates time-to-value and simplifies complex financial infrastructure. Ambitious, tech-driven companies like Forto, GetYourGuide, Mangopay, Storytel, Tide, and Zilch rely on Atlar to automate cash management, payments, and forecasting through powerful, user-friendly tools. Backed by world-leading investors Index Ventures and General Catalyst, Atlar is also a preferred partner of industry leaders, including NetSuite, Citi, and Nordea. About HSBC Innovation Banking HSBC Innovation Banking provides commercial banking services, expertise, and insights to the technology, life science and healthcare, private equity, and venture capital industries. HSBC Innovation Bank Limited is a subsidiary of HSBC Group, benefiting from its stability, strong credit rating, and international reach to help fuel its growth. Also Read
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The 4 E’s of Micro-Hedging Programs
This article is written by Kantox This blog explains the nuts and bolts of micro-hedging programs and the benefits they provide to corporations. By using micro-hedging programs —either on a standalone basis or in combination with other programs—, finance teams are in a unique position to: So let’s dive in and explain how companies can profit from these four E’s. Eliminate FX risk. Enhance control. Earn more. Embrace currencies. Micro-hedging programs are API-based software solutions that allow corporate treasury teams to effectively hedge their exposure to currency risk —whatever the number of transactions— with a high degree of automation, visibility, and control. They are emerging as a key element in most corporate FX hedging strategies. The versatility and ease-of-use of micro-hedging programs, even when many currency pairs are involved, are proving themselves a must-have in different setups: The first “E”: eliminate currency risk At first sight, the notion that currency risk can be removed with great precision, even when many transactions in different currency pairs are processed, may seem a bit outlandish. To understand how micro-hedging works, the notion of market monitoring plays a key role. Thanks to API connectivity, stop-loss and take-profits are set around the FX rate at which a piece of exposure known as an entry —a firm order or an invoice— is received from company systems (ERP, TMS, others). As long as the FX rate trades inside this corridor, new entries are accumulated into positions. Because each entry arrives at a different moment, and therefore at a different exchange rate, the system needs to automatically calculate the weighted average exchange rate. When either of the boundaries of the range is hit, the position is automatically hedged. From the FX risk management point of view, the benefits of this procedure include: But what about hedging precision? Here’s precisely the point. When the drill is performed during sufficiently long periods of time, something interesting happens: “Over time, the stop-loss and take-profit orders tend to offset each, resulting in fluctuations around a central point. While financial time series exhibit skewness and other complexities, the overall risk typically decreases as the process unfolds” — Andrea Perissinotto, FX Data Analyst Team Lead, Kantox And that’s how micro-hedging virtually eliminates FX risk, either in the context of transaction risk or in terms of accounting risk. The second “E”: enhance control In our blog Debunking 4 Currency Management Myths: Protecting Profit Margins in 2025, we discussed some myths surrounding FX hedging. We could have included another one: the notion that automation weakens managers’ control over their hedging programs. In fact, the opposite happens. Currency Management Automation makes it possible for finance teams to strengthen control throughout the different phases of the FX workflow. To illustrate the point, treasurers can, at any point in time: When it comes to validating exposure data, treasurers can enforce a manual validation process according to different criteria in terms of amount, maturity, and currencies. Checkpoints are also available during the trade and post-trade phases. By way of example, Nutrien, a Canadian crop inputs provider, recently announced a $220m loss on FX derivatives transactions in Brazil: “We recorded a foreign exchange loss of $220 million on foreign currency derivatives in Brazil for the second quarter of 2024 […] we have a material weakness related to our controls over derivative contract authorization in Brazil” — Nutrien The company blames “an individual outside applicable internal policy and authority”. How do automated micro-hedging programs deal with this issue? From the outset, any derivatives transaction is numerically traced back to the corresponding exposure. A fraudulent trade will thus have a very hard time progressing from the ‘pre-trade’ to the ‘trade’ phase. Traceability and control Control is also enhanced by the traceability feature of micro-hedging programs. Across the journey from entry to position, to conditional order, to operation, and to payment, each element has its own unique reference number. In addition, payments carry the operation reference within their SWIFT message, allowing funds to be traced throughout the entire payment process. Whenever a position is hedged, it is possible to trace it back to the original entries, including the exchange rate. This is called end-to-end traceability. Among other control-related tasks, it makes it possible to: The third “E”: earn more The third “E” of micro-hedging programs can be illustrated with a simple proposition: improve profit margins by always contracting in the cheapest currency. With currency risk under control, managers avoid the misplaced temptation of buying directly in their firm’s own currency. The truth is that the underlying FX risk never goes away — it is merely transferred onto suppliers, who then apply markups to protect themselves from the underlying risk. By removing this friction, markups are sidestepped, and contracting costs are reduced. This example from the Travel industry illustrates the point: (*) Note that the margin increases to 5.5% by using the forward rate of 0.9730 instead. Forward points are favourable because —as interbank interest rates are higher in the U.S. than in Europe— the exchange rate translates into a higher forward EUR value, compared to spot. This gain can be used to reduce contracting costs. The fourth “E”: embrace currencies The fourth “E” of micro-hedging programs —embrace currencies— flows from the previous three. With FX risk under control, enhanced control over the workflow, and supplier markups out of the way, managers can confidently sell in more currencies. Thanks to Multi-Dealer Platforms such as 360T, to which micro-hedging programs are connected, treasurers can execute trades —in favourable liquidity conditions— in the currencies of a number of small, but well-managed economies: SEK, NOK, CAD, AUD, NZD, SGD, and KRW. A recent Amadeus survey about consumers’ attitudes shows: For firms with international operations, the conclusion is simple: you should sell in the currency of your customers. Some of the benefits include: This is happening already. A Bloomberg News article shows evidence that currency managers are sidestepping USD to conduct business in other currencies. French firms Saint-Gobain, Bouygues Construction, Veolia, and Neoven are increasing…