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The complexity of international guarantees no longer prevents them from being processed digitally

In November, SWIFT will release a new set of trade finance messages to facilitate paperless processing of international guarantees. The challenges for corporates lie in communicating with all their counterparties in a common language, increasing efficiency and, ultimately, having a consolidated view of their liabilities. In this interview, Malik Dahmoune, director of Finelia Trade Finance…
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Covid-19: The ICC calls on governments to enable paperless trade

The outbreak of Covid-19 has provoked an unprecedented disruption of the global economy and global supply chains, as consumption and production are scaling back everywhere around the world. The current crisis has exposed the vulnerabilities of world trade and trade finance, mainly due to the shortcomings of a paper-based trade system which has proved to…
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Digitalisation in Trade Finance (excerpt from Hubert Martini’s book)

Words of an expert and designer of trade digitalisation solutions for both banks and companies. Trade Finance has long been insensitive to technological progress, remaining instead – both due to tradition and necessity – locked into manual, complex and resource-consuming practices. In the 2000s, banks, who were keen to reduce their operational costs, invested in…
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Trade finance, a new area of optimisation for treasurers

According to Emmanuel Léchère, Market Intelligence Manager at Redbridge, fees for notifications and the use/removal of documents and amendments, which are often proportional to the amount of a documentary credit, are as unjustified in an export contract as are account activity fees on commercial debit flows (CMC). Trade finance tools, which are designed to regulate…
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Documentary credits in the digitalisation era

The automation of documentary credit processing is now possible for both exporters and importers. The result is improved visibility and cost control for this means of payment which, for over a century, has contributed to the development of international trade within a secure framework. International trade has continued to develop since the end of World…
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How trade finance is surfing on the technological wave

Trade finance, traditionally a banking activity renowned for its widespread use of “paper”, is now undergoing a transformation. The digitalisation of documents, the creation of the Bank Payment Obligation (BPO), the emergence of FinTechs are propelling these banking activities into the future by giving them a technological flavour. But new players are emerging: is this…
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