In-house developed solution mitigates FX risk at Roche
Published: Sep 2025
Best Risk Management Solution
Highly Commended Winner
Roche
Photo of Alejandro La Grotta and Miguel Trapero, Roche.
Miguel Trapero
FX & Affiliate Financing Manager
Switzerland
Swiss-headquartered Roche is the world’s largest biotechnology company and the global leader in in-vitro diagnostics.
Roche employs more than 100,000 people and sells its products in over 100 countries.
The challenge
For a company like Roche, with an industry-leading treasury set-up, innovation, automation and digitisation are top priorities – and FX is an important component of the company’s financial results. As such, Roche aimed to improve its FX processes, in a more standardised, transparent and efficient manner. Roche’s treasury has a fully centralised set up and is centrally hedging the FX exposure that the affiliates have around the globe. Automated daily FX hedging for the affiliates has been put in place for 15-20 years. However, to see the real-time intraday exposure on a global level, different reports had to be used, mainly due to its affiliates using different SAP systems.
The solution
Until recently, the gathering of all group’s FX exposures and the management was done in a time-consuming manual fashion outside of Roche’s TMS (SAP), largely due to a lack of global consolidated FX position tools. Seeking to make better use of technological capabilities and its internal ability to develop custom solutions, Roche embarked on a project with its IT business partner, to develop a consolidated FX tool.
“Rapidly, we realised that we shouldn’t stop there, and that we could also bring further features to the tool,” explains Miguel Trapero, FX & Affiliate Financing Manager.
The result is that with this innovative and tailor-made in‑house built automation solution, Roche now finally has a full-scale FX panel tool, consisting of three pillars:
Global, transparent and accurate FX exposures.
FX deal suggestion per currency (according to Roche’s own rules and settings).
Orders being sent and monitored to a trading platform, for execution, confirmation and settlement.
“Winning an Adam Smith Award is an incredible honour that not only recognises Roche’s commitment to excellence but also reflects the dedication and hard work of its group treasury team. Further, it reinforces our values of innovation and continuous improvement as we strive to set new standards in our industry.”
Miguel Trapero, FX & Affiliate Financing Manager
Best practice and innovation
With this new tool, best practices for FX trading are maintained by setting up back-stop rules and logic tables in the background, which will ensure that the deal orders are kept within market standards and requested to Roche’s counterparties in a market-friendly fashion.
Moreover, innovation is being pursued in treasury as Roche intends to own sophisticated but simple-to-use tools that enable the company to leverage technology and help it fulfil its mandate.
“By this, we will free-up resources that can be allocated to other treasury-relevant topics and projects. Looking forward, Roche plans to continue to develop this tool, and enhance further full end-to-end automation by developing the next capability with the ‘auto-trade’ feature: several currencies will start to be hedged and traded completely automated, within established and approved limits,” says Trapero.
This project demonstrates Roche’s commitment to embracing innovation and staying ahead of the curve when it comes to treasury solutions, while questioning its own set-ups to ensure there is no room for complacency in its processes.
Key benefits
Headcount savings.
Process efficiencies.
Increased automation.
Risk mitigated.
Improved visibility.
Errors reduced.
Manual intervention reduced.
Increased system connectivity.
Future-proof solution.
Exceptional implementation (budget/time).
With the new FX solution, Roche has been able to make its FX management more efficient by consolidating all the FX exposure sources in one panel, while eliminating the risk of human error when compiling exposures and trading amounts.
Britta Doettger, Group Treasurer of Roche says, “The development and implementation of Roche’s innovative FX management tool has had a profound impact on our business, stakeholders and the wider community.
This impact is best understood through the challenges we faced, the dedicated team behind the project and the significant positive outcomes that ensued.”
The Adam Smith Awards are the industry benchmark for best practice and innovation in corporate treasury. The 2025 awards attracted 454 nominations. To find out more please visit treasurytoday.com/adam-smith-awards
Please enter the email that you signed up with below. If your email is
connected to a member account, we will send you a reset link.
This website uses cookies and asks for your personal data to enhance your browsing experience. We are committed to protecting your privacy and ensuring your data is handled in compliance with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).
