European Monetary Union (EMU)

European Monetary Union (EMU) caused some complications when it was first introduced. The main ones were:

• There were special rules for converting between two In-currencies, i.e. between two currencies which both had fixed exchange rates to the euro. These rules were known as triangulation.
• There were special rules for securities which changed their denomination to euro. Securities also changed their price currency and the currency in which they paid dividends.
• Finally clients need to change their reporting currency to euro.
• Trust Accounts was adapted to handle these changes as follows:
• Exchange rate conversions automatically use triangulation where needed.
• The Data Feed was adapted to bring in information about securities changing their denomination, price currency and income currency. Options appear in CCH Trust Accounts (under Tools > Investment Tools > EMU...) to perform these conversions automatically.
• We found that in practice very few clients accounted in in-currencies. So there was no need for an option to change the client reporting currency to euro.

Currently EMU is much easier to deal with as the euro is treated in the same way as any other currency. But CCH Trust Accounts still supports all these features if they are needed in future. In the jargon, CCH Trust Accounts is EMU-ready.