The oldest banks in the US and Japan respectively, the Bank of New York Mellon (BNY) and Mizuho Bank announced on Sunday that they will be partnering to digitalise cross-border trade finance operations.
The collaboration, underpinned by BNY’s Trade Network Access Service, enables mutual access to each institution’s Relationship Management Applications (RMAs), significantly streamlining international trade processes.
Jennifer Barker, Global Head of Treasury Services and Depositary Receipts at BNY, highlighted the practical implications: “We observed clients with limited infrastructure struggling to process occasional letters of credit. Our RMA-as-a-Service solution eliminates the need for substantial capital investment whilst maintaining operational capability.”
The partnership grants Mizuho access to more than 4,000 bank branches through BNY’s network. “Establishing individual RMAs is both resource-intensive and expensive. This collaboration represents a far more efficient approach,” said Tsutomu Yamamoto, Managing Executive Officer and Head of Global Transaction Banking Unit at Mizuho Bank.
The alliance promises more than mere cost reduction, according to Ashutosh Kumar, Co-Head of Global Transaction Banking for Asia & Oceania at Mizuho.
Kumar said, “By combining our networks, we dramatically expand our clients’ reach. BNY’s sophisticated online portal enables seamless counterparty searches across this expanded network.”
Artificial intelligence should to accelerate letter of credit processing, andBNY is exploring additional efficiencies for the traditionally labour-intensive process of letter of credit management.
