Bank of America Merrill Lynch Offers Financial Institution Clients Guaranteed FX Rates for up to 180 Days

Cross-currency transactions are an increasingly common and valuable part of business for small and medium-sized enterprises. To help those companies add certainty in the often volatile world of foreign exchange rates, Bank of America Merrill Lynch (BofA Merrill) now offers its financial institution (FI) clients a fully integrated FX risk management program, which includes guaranteed FX rates for up to 180 days for their qualified customers.

Similar to what BofA Merrill already offers its corporate clients, the guaranteed rates program benefits both FIs and their customers by reducing risk, increasing efficiency and smoothing out volatility.

“Our financial institution clients are seeing increased competition from both bank and non-bank providers in providing payments services to businesses,” said David Kretz, head of Global Strategy and Payments for Global Transaction Services (GTS) at BofA Merrill. “We are pleased to add a guaranteed FX rate program for them to pass along to their business customers to use for cross-currency payments.”

Banks who take advantage of the guaranteed FX rate program benefit from:

· The ability to launch new products and services to meet growing client demands.

· Improved operational efficiencies by leveraging BofA Merrill’s global network.

· Allowing their clients to transact in additional currencies without assuming additional FX risk or increased operational expenses.

· The flexibility to offer guarantee rates across multiple product lines, customer segments or combinations of the two for anytime between one hour and 180 days.

Through the guaranteed rate program, BofA Merrill offers more than 140 currencies, with 25 of the most common currencies available for guaranteed rates of greater than one day up to 180 days.

“For our FI clients, this program removes much of the risk management challenge is arranging cross-currency payments for their customers,” said Stephanie Wolf, head of Global Financial Institutions, Governments and Business Banking for GTS. “Plus, the burden on their customers of worrying about FX rate volatility impacting their payments is eliminated.”

Bank of America Merrill Lynch products and services are subject to applicable terms and conditions.