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.
Trade Finance Global caught up with Head of Macroeconomic Research, Ana Boata at Euler Hermes last month at The Institute of Export & International Trade’s World Trade Summit. A very interesting macroeconomic view on how households, retail and economic growth has changed in 2019 due to trade wars, Brexit and business uncertainty.
We spoke to the Finastra’s CEO Simon Paris about the future of trade and challenges of capitalism, during the World Trade Symposium at New York. We discussed key themes around bilateralism and multilateralism in global trade and why we need to turn our eyes to plurilateralism. A typical SME trade finance transaction is $25,000, but the average cost to trade finance instruments is $4,000 and this is not particularly helpful in addressing the trade finance gap. Is the technology the remedy here?
We spoke to Anabel Gonzalez during the World Trade Symposium in New York. We discussed whether the current US-China trade war had a positive impact on Latin American trade flows. Geopolitical uncertainty continues to threaten foreign investment and economic growth, particularly in emerging markets. Policymakers around the world are fretting about trade uncertainty and its impact on access to business finance, meanwhile, innovation and competition remain critical for economic growth.
TFG heard from the inspirational CEO of CBI, Liliana Fratini Passi. CBI is an innovation society leading the way for PSPs and the transaction banking industry in Italy. Liliana spoke to TFG about the latest changes, and what this means for bank, in terms of ISO 20022, UN/CEFACT and PSD2.
With the outcome of Brexit negotiations still shrouded in uncertainty, a priority for the UK remains to establish lasting, meaningful trading relationships with key partner states. As Joshua Allsopp of Leumi UK explains, Israel has become an important partner for the UK in several industries.
With the development of more interconnected alternative finance options for businesses and the emergence of open banking in the marketplace, the option of Peer-to-Peer (P2P) lending is seeing a great increase in popularity over the years among its SME audience.
It seems nowadays unicorn businesses are emerging in the venture capital scene with accelerating frequency. With an increasingly mobile and technologically capable world, fin-tech companies and eCommerce startups are dominating most of the visible market now. Is startup growth really as proliferate and fast-paced as it may seem? The answer is an unsurprising, billion-dollar “yes”.
Trade and supply chain finance is at the forefront of innovation as there are currently many pain points for corporate clients and banks. As the industry moves towards a platform model, we heard from Accenture’s Cecile Leruste on thee major transition and megatrends going on in commodity finance.
Banks are often slow to adopt the latest technology, and in many cases that is warranted. As highly regulated institutions tasked with protecting valuable data, banks understandably want to avoid “running with scissors.” By starting slow with simply implementing APIs in a few areas, they can begin to modernize and ultimately provide streamlined payments solutions, like RTPs, to their largest pool of customers.
