The Golden Age of Trade

Global Trade has never NOT had a Golden Age ... Trade is the driver behind everything that happens and the reason why it happens. Trade is the reason that people have expanded across the globe. Trade is the reason that new innovations happen and then are spread to everyone. Trade is the motivation for acquiring knowledge and with it wealth. Throughout history it was trade that caused the warlike expansion of man and just as quickly the peaceful settlement with growth and prosperity. Trade is behind every good and bad deed the world has seen and now it enters its Golden Age...

The Golden Age of Trade ... This is truly a golden age as we are privileged to see and be part of the greatest expansion of trade itself, but more importantly how banks support trade and the products that will support trade. Over the last decade and more importantly since the Financial Crisis of 2008, trade has taken on new focus with the banks. No longer satisfied with only the traditional trade finance business which according to SWIFT is less than 20% of the corporate trade portfolio. The sights are on entering the other 80% of trade that banks do not see and adding bank provided value to the corporations. This is done in two ways Open Account transaction processing and supply chain finance.

The gold in today's trade business comes in the form of new products lead by the Bank Payment Obligation (BPO), MT798, cloud financing platforms, ISO 20022 Trade Services messages (http://www.iso20022.org/trade_services_messages.page) and the EBA Market Guide on Supply Chain Finance, (https://www.abe-eba.eu/N=EBA-Market-Guide-on-SCF.aspx) just to name a few.

The amount of trade business changes is invigorating and enormous with those at banks and software providers that do not embrace these product opportunities are destined to failure, in the words of Thomas A. Edison; "Many of life's failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up."

We have an opportunity today to provide dramatic changes to this business and dramatic benefits to the corporations. The thinking must be to rationalize the short term benefits to corporations with the long term value that is provided. This is the road of convergence of the Physical and Financial Supply Chains, but that is a story for another blog...