Currency Services – Exchange Rates: A simple, elegant way to source currency exchange rates

IMPORTANT UPDATE

Currency Services is now in support mode. We strongly recommend that you switch to our latest offering – SAP Market Rates Management – on SAP Cloud Platform. You can get more details on our product page on the SAP Help Portal. You must be logged in as a user to view this page. If you do not have access and would like to know more, please get in touch with our product owner – Swarnava Chatterjee.

Introduction

Many processes across industries find use for currency exchange rates, but often have to go through laborious processes to source them. Typically, you’d have to enter into a contract with an external data service provider, get the exchange rates, convert them into an SAP-friendly format, and then plug them into your process.

With the Exchange Rates service, you can now eliminate a lot of this overhead work. With a simple REST call, you can now have access to daily and historical exchange rates at your convenience.

Why the Exchange Rates service?

1. Free Beta!

The Exchange Rates service provides free data sourced from the European Central Bank available for free consumption in our Beta edition of the Exchange Rates service! You can evaluate this service for free and make your own decision.

2. One subscription to YaaS

YaaS hosts several microservices, including the Exchange Rates service. You can register on the YaaS portal for free, and thereby eliminate the need to enter into contracts with external data providers.

3. Easy usability

Through the Exchange Rates service, you can make REST calls that fetch the data you need in an easily usable format. The exchange rates service allows you to input a pair or multiple pairs of source and target currencies for a specific date or for a date range.

4. Seamless usage with SAP S/4HANA

You can configure the Datafeed functionality on your SAP S/4HANA system so that the system calls the YaaS Currency Service to retrieve the latest (or historical) exchange rates, using the transactions Request Current Market Data (TBD4) and Request Historical Market Data (TBDJ).

5. Reliability

The exchange rates are sourced from the European Central Bank – a reliable external service provider.

Intended Target Audience

The Exchange Rates services is primarily intended for financial business process owners who make high-level decisions about the business architecture. If you’re an SAP S/4HANA consumer with a business need that necessitates the use of an exchange rates service, we’ve got you covered!

Additionally, the Exchange Rates service is intended for system administrators who would want an easy way to plug a market data type into their code. As a system administrator, you’ll find that the exchange rates service integrates seamlessly with your SAP S/4HANA system. Keep reading to find out how.

How do I consume this service?

Glad you asked! You can refer to the SAP Note (2431370) for configuration details. You can also visit the Dev Portal – the YaaS platform for our documentation – to get the technical overview and usage information.

Stay tuned for Part II of this blog series for more information about setting up and consuming the exchange rates service.