Foreign Currency Futures and Arbitrage Strategy (9 marks)

Today is May 23, 2016. The spot rate for British pounds is 1.9032 CAD/. The Canadian risk-free rate is 0.52%, and the British risk-free rate is 0.45%. Both risk-free rates are compounded continuously. The vote by the British population for U.K. exit from the European Union (commonly referred to as Brexit) will occur in exactly one month. Due to the uncertainty from this event, market volatility on the British pounds futures is quite high. As an example, the British pound futures contract, which expires on September 23, is priced below the spot rate at 1.4497CAD/. The futures contract size is 62,500 British pounds. Is the futures contract incorrectly priced? If so, construct a risk-free arbitrage strategy to take advantage of the mispricing. Assume there are 365 days in the year, and the Canadian dollar is the domestic currency.