We heard from BCG’s Sukand Ramachandran on the consequences of trade wars and Brexit for global trade, and what this could mean for 2020. Will there be a downturn or disruptive shock, or will innovation and new capital help trade in the next 12 months?

Shop Talk: TFG spoke to VP Trade & Supply Chain Finance ahead of 2020, to catch up on what kept tech giant Finastra on their feet in 2019, as well as hearing their top predictions for technology, trade and supply chain in 2020

As we enter into a new decade, TFG spoke to trade experts to give their bets and views for 2020 in terms of trade and supply chain finance. OCR or ML? AI or DLT? Buzzwords and hype or reality?

Trade Finance Global spoke to Wenhui LIANG at the WTO Global Trade and Blockchain Forum, on the nature of the current state of the global trading and blockchain adoption in global trading.

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.

TFG spoke to Emmanuelle Ganne, Senior Analyst and Blockchain Lead at the World Trade Organization on the state of digitisation within trade and trade finance. With the rise of numerous DLT and non-DLT consortia, what role should multilateral bodies play, and how can we create paperless trade together? The interview was held at ExCred Commodities in London.

This short note explores the potential second order effect of Blockchain and other new technologies on the Trade Finance ecosystem.

All global industries require standards. Remember what a huge step forward it was when the carrier industry agreed on the design for a shipping container. The same is true for electronic trade documents and their supporting systems.

So you’ve built yourself a blockchain, now what are you supposed to do with it?

Facebook recently announced a “blockchain powered currency” called Libra which appears to be a potentially game changing development in payments. Although there is scepticism and uncertainty, Facebook’s Libra initiative is something to be encouraged and applauded. With the caveat that FB needs to be watched very carefully as it has over the years proclaimed in its various mission statements that it wants to “move fast, break things, build things and add stable infrastructure”.