Swiss vendor MIT (Micro-Informatique & Technologies) has signed a contract with OCBC Bank to support its commodity trade finance business with its TRAC (Trade Risk Active Control) system. Maggie Cheong, head of transaction and collateral management, global commodities finance at OCBC, explains the bank’s choice: “We have chosen the TRAC system as it provides the […]
London-based Persia International Bank is replacing its legacy trade finance system, supplied by Surecomp. The new system is Eximbills, provided by Surecomp’s rival, China Systems. Surecomp’s product, IBSNet, has been running at the bank’s London and Dubai locations for over 15 years. It is integrated with the bank’s long-standing core banking platform, Misys’ Bankmaster. It […]
British Arab Commercial Bank (BACB) is looking to modernise its core software. It is believed the bank has settled for a new platform – Temenos’ T24. BACB is a London-based wholesale bank that specialises in trade finance and treasury services to Africa and the Middle East. The bank has been in the system selection mode […]
Trade finance plays an important role in helping to grease the wheels of the global economy. A largely paper-based process, effort is being put into finding ways to automate and improve processes for banks and corporates.
Money laundering is a global phenomenon, evident in many parts of the world. Techniques have ranged from simple bulk cash movements across borders to more sophisticated techniques hidden in trade transactions. As trade between the Middle East and the rest of the world continues to grow, the threat of trade based money laundering becomes more […]
Digitally enabled supplier finance networks and alternative lenders now pose a significant threat to every part of the commercial lending business, with 84% of banks seeing pressure on the pricing of loan products as a challenge.
Royal Bank of Canada has made the first cross-border Renminbi payment on Canada’s new RMB Trading Hub through the hub’s designated clearing bank, Industrial & Commercial Bank of China (Canada).
The replacement of business processes based on paper documents with the exchange of information in electronic form is a highly beneficial global trend, and the competitiveness of Europe’s economic activity will benefit from this migration.
Cross-border low-value payments service provider Earthport, has opened a new payment route into China to support trade payments into the region.
Corporate treasurers are increasingly looking beyond traditional of finance to a wider range of alternative funding options that support their working capital requirements, including supply chain finance, trade receivable securitisation and factoring.
The threat of banks de-risking and exiting regions and businesses in fear of sanctions-related fines is upon us, said Juan Zarate, the ex-deputy national security advisor for combating terrorism to US President George W Bush. Zarate was speaking at a Standard Chartered session yesterday morning about his new book, Treasury Wars: The Unleashing of a New Era of Financial Warfare.
Farid Akhundov, chairman of the executive board of PASHA Bank, discusses how the bank is working to achieve its ambitions in corporate banking in the Caucasus region
London and Singapore are fast closing the gap on Hong Kong in the race to become centres for offshore renminbi business and capitalise on Beijing’s ambition to make the RMB a global currency.
Regulatory mandates call for the financial services industry to collaborate and rethink its data supply chain to tackle systemic risk and improve transparency. Looking at how the retail industry manages its supply chain could hold the key.
Europe now represents 10% of total Renminbi payments in value worldwide and is leading adoption beyond Asian countries, with four European countries in the top 10, excluding China and Hong Kong, according to Swift. Overall, the RMB strengthened its position as the seventh most used global payments currency and accounted for 1.57% of global payments.
The reason Europe calls it a regulatory ‘hearing’ is that it is an opportunity to hear views from both regulators and the market. Of course, that’s just part of the experience as many other senses are triggered when 400 people are locked in a basement for 2 days, deprived of connectivity, food and caffeine …
Nordic financial services group Nordea has gone live in Frankfurt and London with a web-based trade finance solution, which it says will help to strengthen its international trade finance business.
Managing cash in stores remains a major challenge for retailers – trapped cash hinders working capital management and is unavailable for investment, debt repayment or business expansion. But new ways are being developed to manage store cash …
Swift’s head of banking talks about how the industry co-operative plans to build services based the data flowing through its interbank messaging systems.
Standard Bank of South Africa has launched a major expansion drive in West Africa, starting with the opening of a new representative office in the Côte d’Ivoire. The bank plans to use the Abidjan office to become familiar with the region and identify further opportunities within it.
As trade flows shift across regions and economic headwinds blow, the trade finance business is facing challenges. Anne Queree examines how correspondent banking networks are adapting
Technology will contribute to the development of the supply chain finance market, with the growth of e-invoicing systems seen as a significant market accelerator by the majority of the banking community.
Banking software provider Misys has incorporated global processing into its trade finance solution, TI Plus, in a move that the firm says will help banks gain a competitive advantage through improved customer service and reduced costs.
