Item 7A. Quantitative and Qualitative Disclosures About Market Risk

Market risk refers to the risk that a change in the level of one or more market prices, interest rates, currency exchange rates, indices, correlations or other market factors, such as liquidity, will result in losses for a certain financial instrument or group of financial instruments. Our senior management actively monitors certain market risks to which we are exposed, primarily from fluctuations in interest rates and foreign currency exchange rates. In order to limit our exposure to these risks, we may enter into derivative instruments with creditworthy institutions to hedge against changing interest rates and foreign currency rate fluctuations. We currently utilize forward exchange contracts, fixed-to-fixed cross-currency rate swap contracts and other non-derivative hedging instruments to manage risk.

Interest Rate Risk

In addition to existing cash and cash equivalents balances and cash provided by operating activities, we use a combination of fixed- and variable-rate debt instruments to finance our operations. We are exposed to interest rate risk on certain of these debt obligations. We had fixed- and variable-rate debt, excluding finance leases and other financing obligations, with varying maturities for an aggregate carrying amount of $16.8 billion and $4.0 billion, respectively, at December 31, 2022. Our fixed-rate debt at December 31, 2022 primarily consisted of fixed-rate senior notes with a fair value of $15.2 billion, based on matrix pricing which considers readily observable inputs of comparable securities. The potential change in fair value of our fixed-rate senior notes from a hypothetical 1% change in market interest rates would not alone impact any decisions to repurchase our outstanding fixed-rate debt instruments before their maturity. Our variable-rate debt at December 31, 2022 primarily consisted of outstanding U.S. dollar and Euro commercial paper and borrowings on our variable rate term loan and foreign lines of credit. Based on our outstanding debt balances and interest rates at December 31, 2022, a hypothetical 1% increase in market interest rates related to our variable-rate debt would increase annual interest expense by approximately $40 million. This sensitivity analysis assumes the outstanding debt balances at December 31, 2022 and the change in market interest rates is applicable for an entire year.

In connection with processing electronic payments transactions, funds received from subscribers are invested into short-term, highly liquid investments from the time we collect the funds until payments are made to the applicable recipients. Fluctuations in market interest rates affect the interest-related income that we earn on these investments. During the year ended December 31, 2022, the amount of such interest-related income was not material and, therefore, a hypothetical 1% decrease in market interest rates would not have a significant impact on such income. This sensitivity analysis assumes the subscriber fund balances at December 31, 2022 and the change in market interest rates is applicable for an entire year.

Foreign Currency Risk

We conduct business globally and are exposed to foreign currency risk from changes in the value of underlying assets and liabilities of our non-U.S. dollar-denominated foreign investments and foreign currency transactions. We manage the exposure to these risks through the use of foreign currency forward exchange contracts, fixed-to-fixed cross-currency rate swap contracts and non-derivative net investment hedges. Translation gains and losses from non-U.S. subsidiaries are generally reflected as a component of accumulated other comprehensive loss within shareholders’ equity on the consolidated balance sheets. For subsidiaries located in highly inflationary economies, the financial statements are remeasured into U.S. dollars, and the foreign currency gains and losses from the remeasurement of monetary assets and liabilities are reflected in the consolidated statements of income, rather than in shareholders’ equity. The remeasurement of monetary assets and liabilities resulted in foreign currency exchange losses of $52 million and $5 million during the years ended December 31, 2022 and 2021, respectively, primarily related to Argentina.

Our exposure to foreign currency exchange risks generally arise from our non-U.S. operations to the extent they are conducted in local currency. Approximately 14% of our total revenue was generated outside the U.S in each of 2022 and 2021. The major currencies to which our revenues are exposed are the Argentine Peso, Brazilian Real, British Pound, Canadian Dollar, Euro and Indian Rupee. A strengthening or weakening of the U.S. dollar relative to the currencies in which our revenue and profits are denominated by 10% would have resulted in a decrease or increase, respectively, in our reported pre-tax income as follows at December 31:

We maintain foreign currency forward exchange contracts, designated as cash flow hedges, to hedge foreign currency exposure to the Indian Rupee. At December 31, 2022, the notional amount of these derivatives was $346 million, with a fair value of $(8) million. In addition, we maintain fixed-to-fixed cross-currency rate swap contracts to hedge a portion of our net investment in certain subsidiaries whose functional currencies are the Euro. At December 31, 2022, aggregate notional cross-currency rate swaps of 400 million Euro were designated as net investment hedges. We also designated our Euro- and British Pound-denominated senior notes and Euro commercial paper notes as net investment hedges to hedge a portion of our net investment in certain subsidiaries whose functional currencies are the Euro and British Pound.