Risks and Opportunities Policy.
At Wincor Nixdorf AG, the management of opportunities and risks is one of the key elements of activity in managing the Company. For us, it is a simple fact of life that opportunity and risk management is a permanent, integral part of our reporting procedures. It ensures that financial targets are met and, in general, enhances the worth of the Company. We regard the management of opportunities and risks as a value-adding activity.

As an international business, we are exposed to a range of risks inseparably linked to entrepreneurial activity. The job of opportunity and risk management is to contain these risks and make them simple to understand and monitor. The management control tools that we have implemented for this purpose enable us to register and monitor risks centrally in a regular manner. This ensures that the Board of Directors is always kept up to date on current and future risks. The aim, however, is not just to manage and avoid risks, but also to use our control and risk management activities as a means of creating room for maneuver. For example, we can manage and control new acquisitions and projects for large customers by using uniform global guidelines and directives that set out threshold-based authorization trees. Checklists are used to ensure structured analysis and highlight potential risks and opportunities alike.

Management of Opportunities and Risks.

As part of our overall responsibilities, we expanded and refined our opportunity and risk management activities in the fiscal year just ended. Opportunity and risk management is an integral part of our financial control reporting systems. Specifically, this management function involves Group planning and budgeting, period-based actual/forecast reporting and variance analyses.

Dual-Level Controlling.

Opportunity and risk management is integrated into the Group controlling process and is performed by the internal audit department. At Wincor Nixdorf, the controlling function works on two levels. One of these is a decentralized control function, which focuses on output and financial data of subsidiaries and business units. The other level is the Group holding company control function at the head office, which ensures strategic management control within the Company and across all business units.

Compliance, Financial Economy & Security.

The Group internal audit function performs the monitoring and control function within the Group and reports as an independent body directly to the Board of Directors and the Supervisory Board. The internal control systems and business processes both of the subsidiaries and of the head office functions are audited regularly for compliance, operational efficiency and security. Internal audit checks monitor, specifically, compliance with directives, profit-and-loss account data and the contents, and also make process improvement suggestions.

Risk Management System Audited & Attested.

In fiscal 2004/2005, we asked our auditors to check how well our opportunity and risk management system works. The auditors filed no objections.