Trade Finance Talks

TFG heard from the EBRD around their ambitious Green Economy Transition (GET) approach, including the Green TFP which has supported more than 600 foreign trade transactions with a total value of more than €400 million since 2016.

The title of the EBRD’s transition report 2019-2020 – “Better Governance, Better Economies” – summarises its message well. Good governance matters. It matters at the level of countries, subnational regions and firms…

TFG’s Editor, Deepesh Patel, spoke to Yves Mersch about the strategical priorities of the ECB in 2020. They discussed the importance of central banks’ independence for the foreseeing of their mandates. The ECB’s mandate is to ensure price stability…

TFG’s Editor Deepesh Patel spoke to Stacey Facter, BAFT’s Senior Vice President for Trade Products, during BAFT’s Global Annual Meeting, held in Frankfurt from January 13-15, 2020. Anti-money laundering (AML) and sanctions were key compliance themes at the meeting, so TFG caught up to discuss how these could be tackled moving forward, and what’s in stock for 2020.

Currency is part and parcel of monetary policy, and a public mandate of the European Central Bank (ECB). TFG’s Editor, Deepesh Patel, spoke to ECB’s Yves Mersch about the possibilities of central bank digital currencies in relation to payment systems, faster transaction times and settlements. Separating the hype from reality; Mersch spoke to TFG about the regulatory consequences of central bank digital currencies. “We are tech neutral. We want to stay ahead of tech. Tech has to serve our purpose, not the other way around.”

TFG Insights: Chile & Trade. Chile has intelligently pursued development in solar energy technology, a technology that has some of the…

How do fintechs work with banks, and how can we rethink the customer journey for trade finance? TFG spoke to industry experts, in partnership with Finastra.

TFG’s Deepesh Patel spoke to Matthew Beckett, Director of Insurance Placement at SMBC at Excred London. As trade risks and uncertainty abounds, we asked SMBC about how appetite has changed in 2019, and whether additional liquidity has impacted the distribution and origination business.

TFG spoke to Stephen Renna, Chief Banking Officer at US Exim Bank at TXF CPRI in London, about the core priorities and focus for the bank in order to facilitate US exports, now that is has a wider remit to promote US SMEs.

We caught up with Robert Nijhout, from ICISA, about the trends in the surety bond markets and the technological changes in the trade landscape.

Master Risk Participation Agreements Explained – An ITFA View. Unfunded versus funded MRPA and BAFT vs ITFA MPA

TFG hear Frederic Bourgeois , Managing Director for CoFace for UK and Ireland, about the importance of specific insurance policies for the securitisation of trade receivables. He spoke about the trends and changes in the insurance of trade receivables.

Trade underpins the evolution of mankind, and with trade comes trust, and with trust comes third parties. Moving forward from IOUs and promises written on clay tablets thousands of years ago, to today’s interconnected world of trade, I want to question how far the industry has really gotten to, in terms of innovation and true digitalisation.

Geneva, 2nd December 2019. Today, at the WTO’s ‘Global Trade and Blockchain Forum’, ICC, TFG and WTO released a white paper combining over 200 responses from banks, corporates, fintechs and associations in the trade sector, as well as over 20 consortia, on the broader impact that distributed ledger technology (DLT) is having on the trade industry.

Letter of Credit Trade finance as a whole had been struggling to traverse the divide into the digital age until it got a boost from blockchain technology. The Letter of… read more →