1. SWAPS The Short-Term Currency Swap An illustration:
Bank of England (BoE) wants to borrow USD from the Bundesbank (Buba). Buba asks, as security, an equivalent amount of GBP (to be deposited by the BoE with the Buba). Barring default, on the expiration day the USD and the GBP would each be returned, with interest, to the respective owners
Example
S = USD/GBP 2.5, r$ = 3%, r£ = 5%.
time t: BoE receives USD 100m from the Buba for six months, deposits GBP 100m/2.5 = GBP 40m into an escrow account with the Buba.
time T: the Buba returns GBP 40m ¥ 1.05 = 42m, and the BoE returns USD 100m ¥ 1.03 = USD 103m

2. SWAPS Two ways to view the traditional short-time swap contract
View 1: two mutual loan contracts, one for USD 100m to the Bank of England, and the other for GBP 40m to the Bundesbank, with a right-of-offset clause linking the two loans.
“if one party fails to fulfill its obligations, then the other party is exonerated from its normal obligations too, and can sue the defaulting party if any losses occur”

3. SWAPS Two ways to view the traditional short-time swap contract
View 2: a spot sale by the Bundesbank of USD 100m for GBP, combined with a six month forward purchase of USD 103m at
103/42 = = USD/GBP 2.5 ¥ 1.03/1.05 = F.

4. SWAPS Why short-term Swaps exist? 1. Safety
2. Reduction of Transaction Costs
3. Tax Avoidance
4. Religious objections against interest
5. Fictitious Transactions

5. SWAPS Why short-term Swaps exist? (cont.) 1. Safety: Example
Repurchase order (repo): an investor in need of short-term financing
sells low-risk assets (like T-bills) to a lender, and buys them back
under a short-term forward contract
Low-risk loan fi low bid-ask spread ('haircut')

6. SWAPS Why short-term Swaps exist? (cont.)
2. Reduction of transaction costs:
If an investor intends to reverse the transaction
Example
A French investor is optimistic about $ returns on US stocks, but not about the $ itself. She buys spot USD to invest in US stocks, and sells USD forward to hedge the $ risk

7. SWAPS Why short-term Swaps exist? (cont.) 3. Tax Avoidance:
When capital gains are taxed at a lower rate
Example
Buy 10 kilos of gold from a bank at the spot price St = LUF 5m
and sell it back (forward) at Ft,T = St (1+rt,T) = 5.25m
This is a disguised deposit of LUF 5m at 5%, but the return is
a capital gain

8. SWAPS Why short-term Swaps exist? (cont.)
4. Religious objections against interest: Catholic Church, Islam
5. Fictitious transactions:
Hide losses by selling assets at inflated prices (and buy them
back at similarly inflated forward prices)
Hide the ownership of assets by conjuring them away
around the reporting date

9. SWAPS Back-to-Back and Parallel Loans
The right-of-offset was already used in back-to-back and parallel loans
Back-to-back loans:
UK institutional investor (UKII) wants to invest in US. But “investment
dollar premium” made foreign investments expensive to UK
investors. Thus, UKII wants to avoid the spot market at t and T,
by setting up a deal with a foreign firm (USCo) that wants to
invest in the UK:
USCo lends USD to UKII
UKII lends GBP to USCo (or its UK subsidiary)
Right of offset between these two loan contracts: if (say) UKII
cannot pay back, USCo can withhold its payments and sue
for the net loss (if any)

10. SWAPS
Back-to-back loans: (cont.)

11. SWAPS
Parallel loans:
USCo faces capital export controls, cannot export USD to its
UK subsidiary
UKCo wants to lend to its US subsidiary, but there is a
dollar premium
Both can avoid the spot market by granting loans to each
other (or to each other’s subsidiary), with a right of offset
in the two loan contracts

12. SWAPS The 1981 IBM/World Bank Currency Swap:
IBM wanted to call its DEM- and CHF debt: the USD had
appreciated considerably and the DEM and CHF interest
rates had also gone up. But this would be costly:
Exchange transaction costs when IBM buys DEM and CHF
Call premium: IBM has to pay more than the DEM and
CHF face value
Issuing costs when IBM issues new USD bonds.
Capital gains taxes on realized gain

13. SWAPS The 1981 IBM/World Bank Currency Swap:(cont.)
The World Bank (WB) wanted to borrow DEM and CHF to lend
to its own customers
issuing costs on new CHF and DEM bonds
Note that IBM wants to withdraw CHF and DEM bonds (at a rather high cost) while WB wants to issue CHF and DEM bonds (also at a cost). To avoid most of these costs, IBM and WB agreed that WB would take over IBM’s foreign debt instead

14. SWAPS The 1981 IBM/World Bank Currency Swap:(cont.) Specifically,
WB borrows USD instead of DEM, CHF. With the proceeds it buys
spot CHF and DEM for its loans
WB undertakes to deliver to IBM the DEM and CHF necessary
to service IBM’s old DEM and CHF loans,
... while IBM promised to provide the WB with the USD needed
to service the WB's (new) USD loan;

15. SWAPS The 1981 IBM/World Bank Currency Swap:(cont.)
Right of offset between the undertakings
Equal initial value principle: the present value of IBM's (USD) payments to the WB is equal to the present value of the (DEM and CHF) inflows received from the WB.

16. SWAPS The 1981 IBM/World Bank Currency Swap:(cont.) Example
IBM’s DEM debt is DEM 10m at 5% maturing within 5 years
The current 5-year DEM interest rate is 10% and
St = USD/DEM 0.4
Market value of service payments:
(1) DEM 10m ¥ [1 + ( ) ¥ a(10 %, 5 years)]
= DEM 8.105m
or ¥ .4 = USD 3.242m. So the USD loan should also be
worth USD 3.242m.

17. SWAPS The Fixed-for-Fixed Currency Swap
First review the short-term swap:
the contract has zero initial value
The spot and forward contracts each have zero value because
the amounts are exchanged at the going spot and forward rate
Also in the “mutual loan” view, zero initial value holds
[example (Buba/BoE): 5% on GBP, 3% on USD, St=2.5]:
PVUSD = = USD 100 ; and
PVGBP = = GBP 40, or USD 100

18. SWAPS The Fixed-for-Fixed Currency Swap (cont.)
the rates used for setting the forward rate or, equivalently,
for discounting the promised payments are the (near-riskless)
short-term interbank rates:
default risk is limited by the forward contract’s right-of-offset
remaining risks are largely eliminated by screening of
the customers, and by margins or other pledges

19. SWAPS Characteristics of the Modern Currency Swap
Definition. Two parties agree to:
exchange, at time t, two initially equivalent principals
denominated in different currencies
return these principals to each other at T
pay the normal interest, periodically, to each other on the
amounts borrowed

20. SWAPS Characteristics of the Modern Currency Swap (cont.)
The deal is structured as one single contract, with a right of offset
Example
Leg 1 (DEM) leg 2 (USD)
18m at 8% 10m at 7%
(“lent”) (“borrowed”)
Initial exchange of principals <DEM 18.0m> USD 10.0m
annual interest payments DEM 1.44m <USD 0.7m>
payment of principal at T DEM 18.0m <USD10.0m>

21. SWAPS Characteristics of the Modern Currency Swap (cont.)
Swap rates The interest payments for each currency are based
on the currency's "swap (interest) rate"—yields at par for
near-riskless bonds with the same maturity as the swap
Why riskfree rates?
right-of-offset clause; sometimes margin is posted probability
f default is small: screening, 'credit trigger' the uncertainty
about the bank’s inflows is the same as the uncertainty
about the bank’s outflow side. Thus, the corrections for
(minute) risk virtually cancel out

22. SWAPS Characteristics of the Modern Currency Swap (cont.)
Zero Initial value The initial exchange of principals is a
zero-value transaction because the amounts are initially
equivalent. The future interest payments and amortization
have equal present values, too
Example
(2) PVUSD = + = USD 10m,
(3) PVDEM = + = DEM 18m
which implies that the PV in USD is 18m/1.8 = USD 10m

23. SWAPS Characteristics of the Modern Currency Swap (cont.)
Costs A commission of, say, USD 500 on a USD 1m swap,
for each payment to be made. Most often this fee is built into
the interest rates, which would raise or lower the quoted rate
by a few basis points
Sometimes an equivalent up-front fee is asked
Example
7-year yields at par are 7.17% on USD and 9.9% on DEM.
The swap dealer quotes:
USD 7.13% %
DEM 9.58% %
If your swap contract is one where you "borrow" DEM and
"lend" USD, you pay 9.95% on the DEM, and you receive
7.13% on the USD

24. SWAPS Coupon Swaps (Fixed-for-Floating)
Characteristics of the Fixed-for-Floating Swap
Example
An AA Irish company wants to borrow NZD to finance (and
partially hedge) its direct investment in New Zealand.
Better conditions in London than in Wellington preference
for fixed-rate loans, but spread on revolving bank loans is
lower than spread on fixed-rate Eurobonds:
[LIBOR+1%] vs 19% [= swap rate + 3%]

25. SWAPS Coupon Swaps (Fixed-for-Floating)
Characteristics of the Fixed-for-Floating Swap (cont.)
The company borrows NZD at the (risk-free) swap rate (16%)
plus the spread of 1% it can obtain in the "best" market (the
floating-rate Eurobank-loan market)

26. SWAPS Base Swaps Example: IN: T-bill rate / OUT: Eurodollar (LIBOR)
Why?
To speculate on the TED spread
(For a swap dealer): to hedge two (unrelated) coupon
swaps—one where IN is LIBOR and OUT is T-bill

27. SWAPS
Cross-Currency Swaps

28. SWAPS
Cocktail Swap

29. SWAPS Conclusions Swaps allow a company to
borrow in the market where it can obtain the lowest spread
exchange the risk-free component of the loan’s service
payments for the risk free component of a another loan
that is thought to be more suitable

30. Sushi Bank can issue 7-yr Eurobond at 12%
SWAPS
Case. An Interest Rate Swap: Will it work?
Basket Corporation
Metro Bank
Sushi Bank
Fixed Rate Payer
12% Fixed
Floating Rate Swap
LIBID (-)1/8%
Target Rates
At least 12 basis points
Basket
Basket
Fixed Reference Rate:
- 7 year note
- All in cost 127/8%
= %
Floating Reference Rate:
- Commercial
- Paper rate + 1/2% fee
93/ /2% = 97/8%
Sushi Bank can issue 7-yr Eurobond at 12%

31. SWAPS Case. An Interest Rate Swap: Will it work? (cont.)
LIBOR (overnight) = 9%
Basis Swap days = 91/8%
1 month = 92/8%
3 months = 93/8%
6 months = 95/8%
1 year = 97/8%
Total Gain/Loss: basis points
basis points
for basket basis points
CP + 1/4%
Vs.
LIBOR

32. SWAPS Case. An Interest Rate Swap: Will it work? (cont.)
From Sushi Bank:
Point of View:
Sushi receives reference: 11.66% ie 112/3%
12%
Sushi pays: LIBOR - 1/2%
Reference: LIBOR - 1/8%
Total Gain to Sushi Bank: 1/3 - 1/8% = 1/12%
3/8 - 1/3 = (9-8)/24 = 1/24%
1/3% loss
(-) 3/8% gain

33. SWAPS Case. An Interest Rate Swap: Will it work? (cont.)
Gain to Metro Bank: 12 basis points
1. Swap is successful
2. Default Risk of Counter Parties