Blockchain

After COVID-19, the commodity trade finance industry experienced a period of great recovery. Trade finance covers a broad range of financing arrangements for the production, exporting and selling of commodities. 

DLT offers the financial services industry a new piece of infrastructure to push the boundaries of Open Banking. But it doesn’t come without its challenges. TFG heard from tradetech expert André Casterman on future use cases for blockchain in assets, trade and transaction banking.

With an estimated 3.5 billion fans around the world, it’s no wonder the finance behind football piques interest, even in the world of trade and receivables finance.

A court ruling on 22 February heard that the Marco Polo Network has debts of more than €5.2 million (£4.6 million).

2022 was a year of seismic and rapid changes for international trade and trade finance. War in Europe, COVID-19, and inflation created unimaginable disruptions in the industry. This dynamic phase is creating opportunities and gives way for new entrants in the ecosystem.

Iain MacLennan, VP of product management and trade at Finastra, and Patrik Zekkar, CEO of Enigio, Patrick DeVilbiss, head of product at CGI and Alisa DiCaprio, chief economist at R3, provided us with their predictions for the trade technology landscape in 2023.

In TFG’s conversations with industry experts, we have learned quite a lot about trade volumes and commodities, trade technology, and trade credit insurance. While there is plenty of uncertainty regarding the global outlook in 2023, it is clear that there are many areas of optimism for international trade.

There is little doubt that 2022 has been an unprecedented year and for better or for worse, there has been a lot that has happened in the trade, treasury, payments and supply chain spaces.

Alex Gray, head of trade finance at The London Institute of Banking & Finance, explains why the staff at trade banks will have an important role to play in gathering and utilising ESG data from supply chains 

According to Edwards, reducing the record-high $1.7 trillion USD global trade finance gap will be amongst the most important considerations facing the trade finance industry in 2023. The trade finance sector is developing several tools to address this issue.

The evolution of cross-border payments is more exciting than ever. However, for banks, the priority is to use the payment data for compliance and differentiation. So, get your data in order.

On Tuesday, Maersk and IBM announced that TradeLens, their collaborative blockchain-based global trade platform, will be withdrawn from the market. 

Your Monday coffee briefing from TFG – PODCAST | Float or sink: BIMCO discusses eBL adoption, standards, interoperability

The notoriously volatile cryptocurrency market suffered another serious blow earlier this month as FTX, once one of the largest cryptocurrency exchanges in the world, met its rapid end. 

With the trade ecosystem increasingly shifting towards technological advancements, and a market saturated with options in which to digitise trade processes, it can be difficult to cut through the noise.