RELEASED: Trade Finance Talks – Times' Ticking for Tech

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Editor’s note

“There is nothing permanent except change.”

Greek philosopher Heraclitus’ words, written more than 1000 years ago, ring truer today than ever before.

Change can come at any point and can be catalysed by any manner of things. Trade has proven no exception to the rule. US inflation is at a 40-year high, sovereign debt is soaring all around the world, and there’s no end in sight with the devastation between Russia and Ukraine.

At the World Trade Organisation’s (WTO) Public Forum this month, we heard Director general Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala admit that the world is heading towards a global recession due to a “collision of poly-crises around security, climate, energy, [and] food prices”.

“The world cannot afford to do business as usual,” Okonjo-Iweala said.

Yet, the counter-cyclical nature of trade against sluggish economic growth is creating an urgency toward affordable, inclusive, and resilient trade.

Digitisation has once again come first place in the trending trade top of the pops, with murmurings of electronic bills of lading (eBLs), non-fungible tokens (NFTs) and legal reform also joining the party.

It’s all quite overwhelming.

Taking a step back though, there have been pockets of success at impressive speeds around many innovations seizing the market, scale is now key. To name a few detailed in this issue; Visa B2B connect, SGTraDEX (with Veridapt), SWIFT’s messaging standards, and African payments developments have all catapulted trade, treasury, and payments.

This issue of Trade Finance Talks aims to deconstruct the tenets facilitating change in the landscape.As the youngest continent in the world, with immeasurable levels of untapped wealth, industry leaders’ heads have been turned toward one region in particular: Africa.

Read more in the foreword to explore the changes and why time is truly ticking for tech…

Deepesh Patel

Editorial Director, TFG