Articles

A resilient supply chain will reduce the impact to supply chain disruption. Supply chain resilience is simply a supply chain's ability to react, adapt and recover. The more resilient your supply chain is, the better your business will fair when crisis hits.

Trade finance is a set of techniques aimed at mitigating and transferring trade risks to the financial sector, enabling domestic and international trade flows. Trade finance focuses on supporting the physical flow of goods across borders while primarily using the goods, receivables and cash generated from the trade as the principal security.

International Trade has particular characteristics that give rise to different types of risks. Trade financiers thus spend most of their time understanding and mitigating these risks. This article covers a basic selection of some of the key risks in international trade finance.

Trade Finance provides a variety of benefits to a range of beneficiaries, from corporates to small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), as well as to countries and governments.

In trade transactions, payments need to be made in a secure and timely manner. When establishing a new relationship, buyers and sellers usually use intermediaries, such as banks, to limit risk. The intermediaries can guarantee that payments are made on schedule. As trust develops between a buyer and seller, businesses may switch to cash advances or providing trade credit on open account terms.

There are a variety of trade finance providers. When accessing trade finance, it is crucial that business owners choose a suitable lender. Trade finance providers can generally be split into banks and non-bank lenders.