Study objectives：

　　To appreciate the nature of interest rate risk.

　　To describe internal methods of hedging interest rate exposure.

　　To implement and evaluate external hedging strategies.

　　Nature of interest rate risk

　　Companies have exposure to interest rates risks：

　　Rising interest rates

　　Falling interest rates

　　Management of interest rate risk：

　　Smoothing-maintaining a balance between fixed rate and floating rate borrowing.

　　Matching-attempting to have a common interest rate for both assets and liabilities.This is more practical for financial institutions than for trading companies.

　　External hedging techniques：

　　Forward Rate Agreements(FRAs);

　　OTC options-caps，floors and collars;

　　Interest rate futures contracts;

　　Options on interest rate futures;

　　Interest rate swaps and swaptions.

　　Stakeholder definition

　　Government regulation

　　Regulation includes the existence of governing bodies such as：

　　(a)OFWAT-water regulation

　　(b)Postcomm-Royal mail regulator

　　(c)Competition commission-takeover and merger regulator.

　　Other environmental and ethical issues

　　Government regulation

　　Government regulates

　　supply，quality and prices of certain organisations such as：

　　(a)Monopolies

　　(b)Privatised utilities

　　(c)State owned/run.

　　Regulation is designed to enforce/enhance：

　　(a)Competition