Estimated reading time: 10 minutes
Your Monday morning coffee briefing from TFG:
- What do SMEs expect, and how can these expectations be met?
- 5 takeaways from the BAFT Global Annual Meeting 2025: The tug-of-war between localisation and collaboration
- VIDEO | Can AI finally fix cross-border payments?
- Development banks: The natural arbiters
- The rise of T-bill agents: What treasurers really want and what they’ve been missing
- Global trade is reducing emissions but increasing air pollution, World Bank report finds
- US and Japan agree new trade deal, automobile industry sees positive signs
- UK trade roundup: Non-EU trade boosts imports as goods exports suffer
What do SMEs expect, and how can these expectations be met?
Micro, small, and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs) employ over 70% of the world’s workforce, and their supply chains contribute up to 90% of global business. At the same time, they struggle more than anyone to access finance. Read more →
5 takeaways from the BAFT Global Annual Meeting 2025: The tug-of-war between localisation and collaboration
Navigating the trade finance landscape, with constant dodgeballs in the form of geopolitical tensions, regulatory requirements, and threatening technology, requires considerable agility. But this year’s BAFT Global Annual Meeting, in Washington, DC, revealed the considerable opportunity in times of turbulence. Read more →
VIDEO | Can AI finally fix cross-border payments?
Mick Fennell, the business line director for payments at Temenos, shared some insights into this at the Money 20/20 Europe conference in Amsterdam this June. “We see enormous opportunities for AI within the entire payment space, and it’s more of a surgical way of introducing it to various aspects of processing,” he said. Read more →
Development banks: The natural arbiters
The idea is straightforward but powerful: development banks could subsidise and maintain shared compliance infrastructure to facilitate transactions between markets that currently lack the necessary trust architecture. Read more →
The rise of T-bill agents: What treasurers really want and what they’ve been missing
Treasury professionals largely consider T-bills a secure place for corporate cash. 66% of survey respondents said they would feel safer holding T-bills directly in their name, free from counterparty or redemption risk. But only 12% actually do. The rest? Spread across accounts and instruments exposed to counterparty risk. Read more →
Global trade is reducing emissions but increasing air pollution, World Bank report finds
A recent report by the World Bank has found that global trade, especially between developed and developing countries, is reducing greenhouse gas emissions by as much as 2.2% annually. However, the opposite effect is seen in emissions of PM2.5, tiny airborne particles responsible for air pollution, which worsen as global trade increases. Read more →
US and Japan agree new trade deal, automobile industry sees positive signs
In what US President Donald Trump has described as “perhaps the largest Deal ever made”, this marks a deescalation from the previously agreed 25% rate – but higher than the 10% rate which was in place while negotiations were ongoing. Read more →
UK trade roundup: Non-EU trade boosts imports as goods exports suffer
UK trade has grown by 3% over the past year, mostly pushed by a 4% rise in imports and increased trade with countries outside of the European Union (EU), according to the Government’s latest report on the UK’s trade data. Read more →
TFG Weekly Trade Briefing, 21st July 2025
- Trade disruption insurance: A versatile risk transfer product for commodity traders and lenders
- AI and interoperability take centre stage at Surecomp and Traydstream’s Collaborative Trade Finance Innovation Forum
- C-Suite speaks: Arnulf Romann reflects on a quarter century in factoring and receivables
- Germany-China digital trade test executed between Commerzbank, Siemens, and FMS
- UN Commission approves draft legislation on negotiable cargo documents
- VOXPOP | BYOL: Bring your own license models for deploying AI
- EU and Indonesia reach agreement to remove trade barriers
- DP World sign $800m deal to redevelop Syrian Tartus port
- Panama Canal BlackRock sale in jeopardy as China pushes for ownership stake
Trade disruption insurance: A versatile risk transfer product for commodity traders and lenders
TDI covers importers and exporters from losses stemming from force majeure events, political risks, port blockage, and a host of other perils specific to international physical trade transactions. Read more →
AI and interoperability take centre stage at Surecomp and Traydstream’s Collaborative Trade Finance Innovation Forum
During panels, roundtables, and presentations, these five themes came up again and again at the Collaborative Trade Finance Innovation Forum on 18 June, a joint effort between Surecomp and Traydstream. Read more →
C-Suite speaks: Arnulf Romann reflects on a quarter century in factoring and receivables
Arnulf Romann, CEO and co-founder of efcom, discuss this remarkable evolution and the role of technology in reshaping the receivables landscape, coinciding with efcom’s silver jubilee, celebrating a quarter century in the industry. Read more →
Germany-China digital trade test executed between Commerzbank, Siemens, and FMS
The test transaction showcased the exchange of digital original documents between a German exporter and Chinese counterparts, utilising technology from Swedish company Enigio and Chinese trade platform TradeGo. The eBL was processed through systems built on standards from the Digital Container Shipping Association (DCSA). Read more →
UN Commission approves draft legislation on negotiable cargo documents
The draft convention, approved on Monday, 14 July, during UNCITRAL’s 58th session, addresses a legal gap that has hampered international commerce. Until now, only maritime transport has benefited from widely recognised negotiable documents. Read more →
VOXPOP | BYOL: Bring your own license models for deploying AI
At the Money 20/20 Europe conference in Amsterdam this year, Trade Finance Global (TFG) spoke with Anders Meinert Jørgensen, Co-founder & CEO at Avallone, who explained why enterprise clients remain cautious about AI in Know Your Customer (KYC) processes. Read more →
EU and Indonesia reach agreement to remove trade barriers
On Sunday, the EU and Indonesia announced they had reached a “political agreement” on the Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA), a deal expected to increase trade between the two countries and remove most tariffs. Read more →
DP World sign $800m deal to redevelop Syrian Tartus port
In one of the largest foreign investments in the war-torn country since the fall of Bashar al-Assad’s regime, DP World has secured an $800 million, 30-year concession to redevelop Syria’s Port of Tartus. Read more →
Panama Canal BlackRock sale in jeopardy as China pushes for ownership stake
Chinese officials have threatened to block a massive £18 billion port acquisition by BlackRock which would see the Panama Canal, currently owned by Hong Kong-based CK Hutchinson, go into American hands, the Wall Street Journal reports. Read more →
TFG Weekly Trade Briefing, 14th July 2025
- VIDEO | The three-in-one magic of factoring amidst volatility
- Accelerating trade finance automation with AI
- India and the new era of global trade and supply chain finance
- Architects of trust: AI and compliance in Africa’s financial transformation
- VOXPOP | Agentic AI in the future of payments
- U.S. Bank executes its first fully blockchain-based trade finance transaction
- Real-time, real pressure: How banks are building resilience
- India’s UPI payment system expands across UAE in digital finance push
VIDEO | The three-in-one magic of factoring amidst volatility
Speaking at the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development’s (EBRD) Annual Meeting in London on 13 May 2025, Çağatay Baydar, Chairman of FCI, was struck by the “vibrant energy” between the countries and companies under EBRD’s remit. Read more →
Accelerating trade finance automation with AI
The focus remains on augmenting human expertise rather than replacing it, ensuring that the technology serves to enhance rather than eliminate the strategic value that experienced trade finance professionals provide. Read more →
India and the new era of global trade and supply chain finance
With the world’s most advanced digital public infrastructure (DPI) and a thriving fintech ecosystem, India is already at the heart of reimagining working capital. Read more →
Architects of trust: AI and compliance in Africa’s financial transformation
There is a precedent in Africa for turning weakness into strength. For instance, the African mobile payments landscape is extremely vibrant: in 2022, mobile money transactions in Africa hit $1 trillion. Legacy infrastructure on the continent was not a limiting factor, and they went straight to digital. Read more →
VOXPOP | Agentic AI in the future of payments
At the Money 20/20 Europe conference in Amsterdam this year, Trade Finance Global (TFG) spoke with Rosie McConnell, Product Director at IFX Payments, on the single biggest trend she had observed at this year’s conference. Read more →
U.S. Bank executes its first fully blockchain-based trade finance transaction
The Minneapolis-based bank is the first American lender to execute a transaction using WaveBL, a blockchain platform that enables encrypted document transfers between trading partners and their financial institutions. Read more →
Real-time, real pressure: How banks are building resilience
Focusing on this transformation, Trade Finance Global’s Mahika Ravi Shankar spoke to Erik De Belder, Director of North America and the UK at Vyntra. They discussed how the data-focused fintech company is helping banks gain real-time visibility over their transaction flows. Read more →
India’s UPI payment system expands across UAE in digital finance push
India’s digital payment infrastructure is making inroads into the United Arab Emirates (UAE), as the country’s leading fintech organisation advances plans to integrate its Unified Payments Interface (UPI) across the Gulf state’s retail and hospitality sectors. Read more →
TFG Weekly Trade Briefing, 7th July 2025
- VIDEO | How stable is a stablecoin?
- PODCAST | Sowing the seeds for sustainable finance
- VIDEO | BAFT’s strategic independence in an era of geopolitical complexity
- What Trafigura’s £16m victory means for trade finance
- Unlocking domestic capital markets through DFIs
- Trade credit insurers see record demand as protectionism fragments global commerce: Findings from the Aon’s Credit Solution Market Insight Report
- Oracle introduces trade and supply chain finance cloud services
- VOXPOP | Nigeria as Africa’s fintech and payments hub
VIDEO | How stable is a stablecoin?
At the Money 20/20 Europe conference this year in Amsterdam, TFG spoke to Shane Riedel, founder and CEO of Elucidate, which provides regulatory, compliance, and risk assessment services to the financial industry. Read more →
PODCAST | Sowing the seeds for sustainable finance
The energy transition appears to have been a constant back and forth between opportunities and complex regulatory and ESG challenges, and nowhere is this more pertinent than in commodity finance. TFG spoke with Christine Dirringer, Global Head of Trade and Commodity Finance at Rabobank, about how the industry is evolving to meet these demands. Read more →
VIDEO | BAFT’s strategic independence in an era of geopolitical complexity
After more than two decades under the American Bankers Association (ABA) umbrella, the Bankers’ Association for Finance and Trade (BAFT) is charting a new course as an independent organisation. The separation, effective September 2025, will be in response to an increasingly fragmented global financial landscape. Read more →
What Trafigura’s £16m victory means for trade finance
On 23 June, the London High Court ruled that Singaporean commodities giant Trafigura could keep the £16 million it had been given in 2017 by Rasmala Trade Finance Fund, a Dubai-based fund. Read more →
Unlocking domestic capital markets through DFIs
In light of her recent promotion to Partner at Sullivan & Worcester UK LLP, Daniela Barrdear shared her thoughts with TFG about the role that development finance institutions (DFIs) play in emerging market development: harnessing her expertise and background on the subject. Read more →
Trade credit insurers see record demand as protectionism fragments global commerce: Findings from the Aon’s Credit Solution Market Insight Report
Trade credit insurers are bracing for a more challenging environment amidst projected decelerating global economic growth, compounded by uncertain geopolitical trajectories, according to Aon’s Market Insight Report for H1 2025. Read more →
Oracle introduces trade and supply chain finance cloud services
Announced on 30 June, Oracle has launched new cloud-based trade and supply chain finance (SCF) services designed to help banks accelerate lending to corporate clients and small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). Read more →
VOXPOP | Nigeria as Africa’s fintech and payments hub
Traditional payment systems in Africa are proving costly and inefficient, particularly for cross-border transactions. Read more →
