Compare a Guard with a Forward and with No Protection
compare_guard_with_forwardUse when a user asks whether a Guard is worth it, how it compares with a forward contract from their bank or provider, or what happens if they do nothing. ASK BEFORE YOU CALL. The forward side of this comparison should be the customer's own numbers, not CurrencyGuard's guesses. Ask three things first: (1) the forward rate their provider last quoted them for this payment, (2) whether the provider gives them an unsecured line with no deposit, or asks for an initial margin and at what percentage, and (3) at what adverse move the provider demands more cash. Pass what they give you as providerForwardRate, initialMarginPct (0 for an unsecured line) and marginCallThresholdPct. Only call with none of them when the customer cannot answer, and then say in your answer that the forward figures are illustrative defaults. DO NOT RANK. Present every row in the order the output gives it: rates, home-currency amount, cash up front, cash demanded under adverse moves, outcomes under favourable and adverse moves, cancellation, market improvement, worst case. Do not say which one wins, which looks bad, which is cheaper overall, or which the customer should choose. State the numbers. The decision is the customer's. cashNature says what kind of money each figure is: the Guard fee is spent, a forward's deposit and margin calls are held and returned at settlement. Say so when you show them. Held cash is not a cost. outcomes runs each move in both directions. In the favourable rows the Guard lapses and the fee is spent for nothing, and the forward is locked out of the better rate. Show both directions, not only the adverse one. READ OUT comparability.protection AND comparability.pricing beside the cost row, every time. A Guard and a forward are different kinds of protection, and the Guard rate here is mid-market while, bought through a payment provider, it is the rate the provider gives. The cost row is therefore not a like-for-like price comparison. If a tenor like '3 months' is given, call resolve_settlement_date first. DO NOT ALSO CALL price_guard. This returns the Guard rate, fee and amount itself, priced in the same moment as the forward it is compared against. Calling both prices the Guard twice seconds apart, and the market moves between them — the answer then shows two different fees for one Guard. In the cost row, QUOTE THE ALL-IN COST, NOT THE RATE ROW. homeCurrencyAmount.forward already contains the provider margin, because the margin is in the rate, but homeCurrencyAmount.guard does NOT contain the Guard fee. Compare homeCurrencyAmount.guardAllIn with homeCurrencyAmount.forward: those two both carry every cost of their own product. Comparing guard with forward overstates the Guard, by the whole fee. rates.effectiveRate is the same all-in figure expressed as a rate, for setting beside a provider's quoted rate. assumptions.source says, figure by figure, whether the forward side is the customer's data (CUSTOMER, PROVIDER_QUOTE) or ours (DEFAULT, MARKET_CURVE_PLUS_MARGIN). Read assumptions.note out with the answer. Say "your provider's rate" for the customer's figures and "an assumed 5% deposit" for ours. Never present a default as a quote. The Guard figures are indicative: a Guard is bought through the customer's payment provider, and the Guard rate is the rate the provider gives them. Say that when you say "indicative".
Tool call template
Replace each placeholder with a value matching the input schema. Only required parameters are included; add optional parameters as needed.
{
"id": 1,
"jsonrpc": "2.0",
"method": "tools/call",
"params": {
"arguments": {
"guardCurrency": "<guardCurrency>",
"foreignCurrency": "<foreignCurrency>",
"payReceive": "<payReceive>",
"foreignAmount": "<foreignAmount>",
"settlementDate": "<settlementDate>"
},
"name": "compare_guard_with_forward"
}
}Input Schema
| Name | Required | Description | Default |
|---|---|---|---|
| payReceive | Yes | PAY if paying foreign currency, RECEIVE if receiving it | |
| foreignAmount | Yes | Amount in foreign currency to protect | |
| guardCurrency | Yes | Home/base currency ISO code, e.g. GBP | |
| settlementDate | Yes | Settlement date in ISO format YYYY-MM-DD | |
| foreignCurrency | Yes | Foreign currency ISO code, e.g. USD | |
| forwardMarginPct | No | Margin a provider embeds in a forward rate, as a percentage. Used only when providerForwardRate is absent. Default 1. Only set it if the user knows theirs. | |
| initialMarginPct | No | Deposit a provider demands at the start, as a percentage of the forward amount. Ask for it. Pass 0 when the provider gives the customer an unsecured line with no deposit. Default 5 when the customer does not know. | |
| scenarioMovesPct | No | Adverse market moves to show, as percentages. Default 3, 5, 10. | |
| providerForwardRate | No | The forward rate the customer's own provider last quoted them, as foreign currency per unit of home currency, e.g. 1.3122 for GBPUSD. Ask for it. When given, it replaces the market curve estimate and forwardMarginPct is ignored, because a provider's quote already has the margin inside it. | |
| marginCallThresholdPct | No | The adverse move, as a percentage, at which the provider starts to demand more cash. Ask for it. Below it the scenarios show no cash call on the forward. Leave empty when the customer does not know; the comparison then shows a call on every move, which is the conservative reading. |