Emerging markets and selected high yield debt appear to offer opportunities in the current environment of heightened geopolitical risk, according to the summer bond market observations from Standish Mellon Asset Management Company LLC, the Boston-based fixed income boutique for BNY Mellon.

Periods of market volatility associated with this type of risk historically have provided buying opportunities, according to the Standish Bond Market Observations July/August Part II (BMO).

"Over the past two decades, investors who bought the popular global or high yield bond indexes during spikes in volatility on average ended up with positive total return six months later," said David Leduc, chief investment officer of Standish and author of the report.

This time around, conflicts in Ukraine and Iraq have contributed to higher volatility and risk assets began to sell off, the report said. Standish expects both Ukraine and Iraq will settle into an unstable equilibrium. While both have the potential to unsettle financial markets, Standish said they believe that neither is likely to derail global economic expansion in the second half of 2014.

Looking at emerging markets, Standish said valuations appear to be particularly compelling in Latin America and Asia.   However, Leduc added, "We worry about the vulnerability of the sector to the eventual tightening of Fed policy despite the improvement in market technical signals."  The improvement in technical signals followed the sell-off that occurred in the spring of 2013 when talk of tapering quantitative easing first arose, Standish said.

Overall, Standish expects the U.S. and China to lead accelerating global growth in the 2014 second half.  The report cites stimulus measures implemented by China earlier in the year that are beginning to filter through to the broader economy.  The report also noted that economic output in the U.S. rebounded in the second quarter of 2014. 

Thomson Reuters has released a case study examining CPA firm Windham Brannon's switch to PPC's SMART Practice Aids to address the challenge of audit efficiency and over-auditing.

Over-auditing often occurs when financial statement auditors spend too much time on low-risk areas and too little time on high-risk areas.

"This type of over-auditing is particularly insidious," said Scott Spradling, Vice President of Audit & Accounting in the Tax & Accounting business of Thomson Reuters. "It reduces the efficiency of the financial statement audit as well as the effectiveness — exposing the auditor to business risk and the profession to greater regulatory risk."

Windham Brannon, a large firm in the Atlanta area, recently contended with the challenge of ensuring that every engagement is conducted in the most effective and efficient way possible, ensuring compliance with all auditing standards but avoiding over-auditing. It was important to the firm to choose an audit tool that added value to its workflow, helping the firm to apply professional judgment effectively and assisting the firm in making tough decisions.

After using one third party product for two years, Windham Brannon found that it was not meeting their needs. They went back to the marketplace to evaluate alternatives and selected PPC's SMART Practice Aids, a fully integrated and customizable financial statement audit solution.

"Third party products can help the audit process or hinder it. If the product ends up adding too many steps to the process, steps that aren't relevant, the auditor ends up over-documenting," said Leslie Tourial, CPA and Audit Senior Manager with Windham Brannon. "We needed to find a product that leveraged our expertise as a firm and did not suggest additional work to document considerations that do not apply to the engagement."

Due to the customizable nature and technological capabilities of PPC's SMART Practice Aids, the firm has increased efficiency by better tailoring its audit approach for each client.

"We found PPC's SMART Practice Aids to be very flexible. We can add forms specific to a particular engagement. We can delete forms and substitute them with forms customized for our firm," said Tourial. "It has allowed us to use the knowledge that we have while guiding us through the process and customizing it as well."

"We've been able to tailor our approach a lot easier and don't feel like we're in a box," said John Henriquez, CPA and Audit Partner at Windham Brannon. "We've found it to be much more integrated, and it runs so much better on our systems."

In addition to Windham Brannon, many other audit professionals have improved efficiency and effectiveness with PPC's SMART Practice Aids. This includes Jay Tolsma, CPA, with ELO Prof. LLC.

"We have used PPC's SMART Practice Aids to better evaluate and document the risk assessment process, and tailor our audit programs to conduct our audits in a more efficient process," said Tolsma. "We have improved our realization rates with the implementation and more effective usage of PPC's SMART Practice Aids."

To learn more about the benefits Windham Brannon experienced using PPC's SMART Practice Aids, download the full case study at tax.thomsonreuters.com/WindhamBrannonCaseStudy. For more information on PPC's SMART Practice Aids, visit tax.thomsonreuters.com/products/brands/checkpoint/PPC.

Lombard Risk Management plc (Lombard Risk), a leading UK provider of end-to-end European Banking Authority reporting automation, and automated XBRL tools in this market, has comprehensive support for multiple versions of XBRL taxonomies at the same time.  As the EBA’s requirements continue to be rolled out, this is a mandatory functional must-have. The operational reporting requirements of firms under COREP and FINREP regimes are further complicated by the phased introduction of additional reporting challenges for firms subject to new parts of the regime including Asset Encumbrance reporting.  These changes, and taxonomy adjustments from the regulator to deal with inconsistencies, mean that firms have to cope with the live environment which will include more than one taxonomy.  Operationally, this means any XBRL submission, or more importantly resubmission, made by any firm has to be in the format that was applicable at such time. Firms can be confident that the XBRL solution provided by Lombard Risk will automatically know which version of the taxonomy to use when compiling the regulatory transmission.  Unlike other systems which may require users to set version toggles, the Lombard Risk REPORTER product suite simply allocates the correct taxonomy version automatically based on the date of the data being submitted.  This approach also ensures that Lombard Risk clients may test new XBRL taxonomy versions before they are live simply by deploying the date functionality. James Phillips, Lombard Risk’s Regulatory Strategy Director, commented on the simplicity of the solution: “What I find rather appealing is the transparency to the user.  REPORTER can hold as many taxonomies as are needed for current or historical resubmission purposes, yet there is no client action required as this is all transparent–the user only needs to select the regulatory submission and the date to which it relates, and the correct XBRL taxonomy will be used.” Phillips further commented: “It’s also worth noting that Lombard Risk is the only supplier in the market with a free-of-charge tool, “XBRL-Checker”, which checks the XBRL produced (whether this is from our system or not) against the taxonomy, and also visualizes regulatory XBRL in human-readable format.  Again these tools facilitate handling multiple taxonomies.” Lombard Risk REPORTER is a fully automated end-to-end regulatory reporting suite which provides support for all aspects of the reporting cycle, from data collection to report submission.  The handling of multiple transmission technologies at the same time is a typical challenge which the product has had in scope for many years, providing support for regulators which have mixed submission methods, or as in this case, there is more than one version in use for various reasons at any one time. 

The Shelby County Trustee's office has chosen Thomson Reuters Aumentum software to automate property tax billing and collection administration.

Shelby County, Tennessee, which surrounds Memphis, collects more than $750 million in property tax revenue annually, representing 60% of the County's net revenue.

In 2013, the Shelby County Trustee and the City of Memphis agreed to a partnership in which the County will collect current and delinquent property taxes for the municipality. The Trustee also has agreements to provide property tax administrative support for Arlington, Bartlett, Collierville, Germantown, Lakeland, and Millington municipalities.

Debra Gates, Deputy Treasurer for Shelby County, said that consolidating administrative functions — specifically the selection of a single tax automation system rather than two independent systems — the Trustee and City of Memphis have saved $2.5 million.

By combining administrative tax functions, the County is expected to collect a third more tax revenue (over $1 billion), mail more than 1 million tax bills per year, and log an estimated 230,000 telephone inquiries from taxpayers. "The cost savings are dramatic when you add the efficiency gains that the software offers — such as the ability to make a single assessment in a common system from one office at one time and issue one bill associated with that change," said Gates.

Thomson Reuters Aumentum software was selected because it offers a stable, flexible, and configurable platform. "For taxpayers, there is greater convenience," said Tina Walker, Deputy Chief Administrative Officer for the Shelby County Trustee. "For example, instead of completing a separate application for property tax relief with the county and the city, a taxpayer will only complete it in one place and at one time."

Shelby County's current property tax system had become increasingly difficult, risky, and expensive to maintain.

It was once common for governments to write their own software systems and to independently maintain that software in perpetuity. With rising labor costs and a shrinking pool of programmers for aging technology platforms, however, the cost to independently maintain these systems has risen dramatically. Additionally, staying current with new technologies requires significant system improvements. For example, to upgrade to a newer version of SQL Server requires changing 900 stored procedures within Shelby County's existing tax system.

"There is a real fear of breaking something in the system," said Gates.

Explaining the selection of Thomson Reuters, Gates said, "We believe this is not merely just a vendor-client relationship, but rather a partnership committed to the County's success."

"Shelby County and the City of Memphis are to be commended for bringing their taxpayers more efficient, effective and convenient property tax technology," said Tom Walsh, managing director for Thomson Reuters.

More than 1,100 jurisdictions in the United States use Thomson Reuters Aumentum software to manage property tax, valuation, land recordation, land management, and e-services for governments' operations.

Bravura Solutions Pty Limited (Bravura) today announced that, due to company growth, it has relocated its team in Poland to new, larger premises in Warsaw. The Warsaw office is one of eight global R&D centres of excellence, serving as a development hub for Bravura’s EMEA operations.

The expanded Polish team will support the continued and growing market demand across the EMEA region for Bravura’s products and services. The increased capacity will also see the Warsaw office extend the solutions it currently develops and supports.

Bravura established its Polish operations in 2008, following the acquisition of the GTAS transfer agency software business from Citi. Since then, the number of Warsaw office employees has more than doubled and Bravura plans to continue hiring over the next 12 months.

Martin Lawson, Bravura’s Head of Operations in Poland, said: “We have grown our team in response to strong industry demand. Leasing a larger office space both demonstrates and strengthens our commitment to the EMEA region by further enhancing our technical, capital and development capabilities.” 

Bravura CEO, Tony Klim added: “Our Warsaw office has proven its value over the past six years. The city is a development hub for our EMEA operations due to its reputation as a centre for business and its ability to attract high calibre IT professionals. We look forward to building on our success and setting the stage for Bravura to continue to expand and develop our business within the region.”

Bravura’s Polish operations are now located at Atrium 1, Rondo ANZ, in the business centre of Warsaw.

Alongside the expansion in Poland, Bravura has also created a number of new positions across India, the United Kingdom and Asia Pacific as it continues to experience growing demand for Sonata, its wealth management and life insurance solution.