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DIGITIZATION’S NEXT FRONTIER: NON-FUNGIBLE TOKENS ARE A GAME CHANGER FOR TRADE FINANCE

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Archives, Banking, Banking on Global Trade, Global Trade Daily, Special Reports

DIGITIZATION’S NEXT FRONTIER: NON-FUNGIBLE TOKENS ARE A GAME CHANGER FOR TRADE FINANCE

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Trade finance is known for its stubbornness in the face of change. Even as the world has gone digital, paper-based manual processes remain commonplace across the complex network of counterparties involved in financing global trade. Thankfully, the tide is now turning. To digitize or not digitize is no longer the question–it’s now a case of “when,” not “if.”

The operational challenges of relying on manual processes and systems are well known and much maligned across the industry–incorrect documentation and KYC, non-interoperable systems, manual reconciliation, poor visibility, excessive costs, to name just a few.

Digital solutions have emerged in many different shapes and sizes, but one of the technologies which seems most encouraging is enterprise blockchain. Trade is a fundamentally decentralized system. The industry is heavily intermediated–predominantly by banks that help to facilitate transactions and provide the financing behind them, but also by insurers, customs officials and other market participants. Firms have tried countless times to apply centralized solutions to this decentralized system but, unsurprisingly, none have really worked. 

The decentralized nature of blockchain makes it a perfect fit for trade finance. For the first time, the entire industry is getting behind a technology and moving it into real world deployment at a record pace. The architecture underpinning the entire ecosystem of trade is undergoing complete digital transformation, and exciting new blockchain-enabled developments continue to emerge. One such development is non-fungible tokens, or NFTs. But what are they and how do they benefit participants? 

WHAT IS AN NFT?

A non-fungible token is a unique and non-interchangeable unit of data stored on a digital ledger. NFTs use blockchain technology to provide a public proof of ownership. You’ve probably heard of NFTs in the entertainment industry, largely because they can be associated as unique items with easily reproducible items such as photos, videos, audio and other types of digital files. But they also have wide applicability in the financial services space–and specifically in trade finance. 

It’s important to note that an NFT is simply a specific type of tokenization. Once a trade finance document or obligation has been tokenized, it can be referred to as an NFT. By contrast, a smart contract is a digital contract, stored on blockchain, which will execute once specified conditions are met. In the case of trade finance asset distribution, both smart contracts and tokenization work together to facilitate this activity.

WHAT ARE THE BENEFITS OF NFTs IN TRADE FINANCE?

In reality, NFTs for trade finance have been around for some time, though we’ve only just begun to describe them this way. You could think of trade finance as a practical implementation of the NFTs in the news today. Marco Polo is one such platform which already tokenizes payment obligations and invoices. 

Storing ownership data on blockchain reduces the costs and complications of paperwork that is otherwise required to verify the process. This is no small feat when you consider many of the processes and technologies underpinning trade finance have not been modernized in decades.

Take, for example, invoice financing. While a common activity, managing invoice payments and terms can be slow and inefficient for companies and their trading partners. They must navigate different currencies and jurisdictions, each with unique requirements in terms of contract terms and payments. 

By digitizing these manual processes and storing the data as an NFT, a technology such as blockchain has a real impact on reducing the costs, risks and delays to participants involved in trade finance. 

MAKING TRADE FINANCE MORE ACCESSIBLE TO SMEs

It is complicated and legally difficult to provide an optimal level of credit support to small companies. Nearly $1.5 trillion of demand for trade finance is rejected by banks, according to the Asian Development Bank, with 60% of banks expecting this figure to increase over the next two years. SMEs in developing markets that rely heavily on access to trade can be severely hindered through these outdated processes.

Tokenizing the payment guarantee of the final buyer can make it easier to provide this support, but there are important caveats to this. While tokenizing payment guarantees makes it cheaper and easier to execute credit support, there is no guarantee that these processes will then be used to extend supply chain financing through to the long tail of suppliers. It certainly could be used in this way, but it also might not be. This needs to be adopted at the industry level as suppliers would need to pass the NFT onto their own suppliers in turn for the tokenization of payment guarantees to truly be effective.

Although tokenizing the payment guarantee of the final buyer is a frequently mentioned use case, NFTs can also be used to digitize invoices for factoring, for example. Asset originators can tokenize invoices which can then be financed. This could be a very helpful step in enabling small companies to access the financing they need to grow trade.

EXPANDING THE TRADE ASSET ECOSYSTEM

Beyond their immediate benefits to banks and trading businesses, NFTs can also enable institutional investors to expand their activity in trade finance assets. These assets have historically struggled to scale for well-known reasons: investors find them complicated, there aren’t trusted quantitative benchmarks available and there often isn’t the necessary infrastructure to process them properly. Tokenizing trade finance receivables and payment obligations can simplify the process of asset transfer and solve one of these challenges, thus contributing to the scaling of trade finance assets.

Interest in trade finance as an asset class has grown over the past couple of years for reasons unrelated to NFTs. NFTs, as we think of them today, are relatively new and tend to be associated with digital content rather than physical goods. This framework suits trade finance assets because while they are linked to physical assets, the securities themselves are digital.

Programmable contracts used in combination with NFTs have shown great promise in tackling the problem of trade finance asset distribution. The use of the two functionalities together has promise as a way to support the building momentum around trade finance as an asset class.

OLD MEETS NEW

In order to get the most out of NFTs and blockchain for trade finance–like any nascent technology–they must be used alongside existing systems. In reality, most businesses will continue to use their long-standing legacy systems throughout this transition to a fully digitized space. 

It is crucial, therefore, that disruption is kept to a minimum. NFTs and enterprise blockchain platforms should be viewed as a means of supporting and improving current processes, rather than replacing them. In other words, integration is the single most important factor in helping this industry to keep up with the rapidly digitizing world around it.   

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As head of Trade and Supply Chain at R3, a Dublin, Ireland-headquartered enterprise technology and services provider with offices around the world, Alisa DiCaprio is responsible for trade strategy, standards and governance design. She was previously a senior economist at the Asian Development Bank and holds a doctorate from MIT.

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Archives, Banking, Global Trade Daily

Check use drops, but still plenty of room for efficiency gains

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AFP, the Association for Financial Professionals released the 2022 Payments Cost Benchmarking Survey underwritten by Corpay. The survey looks at external costs such as bank/payment provider fees, reporting, interchange for credit cards, etc., and internal costs such as personnel, technical equipment, IT support.

Treasury and other financial professionals can now compare their costs of making and receiving seven types of payments–check, ACH credits and debits; wires; credit and debit cards; real-time payments, and virtual cards–against benchmarks for similarly sized companies. This is useful information for identifying areas for optimization and in making the business case for further automation.

This time around, the cost of incoming payments has also been segmented by tender type, a recognition of the fact that impact to vendors should be part of the equation when implementing a new payment strategy.

Survey Says…

This survey was completed about 18 months after COVID-19 began and reflects the acceleration of electronic payment adoption driven by work from home policies. The typical organization now reports processing between 500 to 999 checks per month and 1,000-1,999 outgoing payments via ACH Credit. In 2015, the median number of checks processed per month was 1,000-1,999 while the ACH Credit median was 500-999 per month.

Data collected from nearly 350 accounts payable professionals confirms that paper checks are considerably more expensive than all electronic payment methods except for wires. Even though the survey found high awareness of the cost of checks compared to electronic methods, 92% of organizations continue to accept them.

Survey results indicate that despite lower overall check processing median transaction cost for issuing a paper check range between $2.01-$4.00 per check

Increased efficiency was the primary reason cited for transitioning to electronic payments (92% of respondents), compared to 82% of respondents that cited cost reduction. This marks a shift in focus; according to the 2019 AFP Electronic Payments Survey—released well before the pandemic hit—the top three drivers were cost savings, fraud controls and better supplier/customer relations. Efficiency in terms of speed and ease of reconciliation were ranked 4th and 5th respectively in 2019.

Fraud remains a top concern, with 67% citing fraud concerns as a primary driver for electronic payment adoption. Fifty five percent of organizations with revenue greater than $5 billion said the move was part of a larger workflow automation project.

Despite the new focus on efficiency, results from this year’s survey suggest that paper checks are not going away anytime soon. Despite nearly two thirds of organizations saying they would replace paper checks with electronic payments if there was a cost benefit, 37% of all respondents said they would continue to use paper checks regardless of costs.

The report cites the ubiquitous nature of checks, tradition, the challenges of converting vendors to electronic payment methods, and longstanding systems and routines as enduring obstacles to change. This thinking, along with other internal Corpay market research, suggests that many organizations remain unaware of changes in the payments market that could help them achieve greater efficiencies, cut costs and better prevent fraud.

Our take:

-Card payments remain underutilized. Procurement, T&E and virtual card processing can be easier to automate as vendors often have systems in place to capture data from ERP and procurement systems. As treasury and payments professionals continue to focus on tightly managing working capital , credit cards can be a very valuable tool. Organizations should evaluate their average cost of capital, cost of credit, and credit terms, and the opportunity cost of accepting/not accepting cards when evaluating them as part of an overall larger payments strategy.

-The adoption of virtual cards in particular is still relatively low—23% across all respondents. Virtual cards offer all the working capital benefits–including rebates–associated with traditional credit cards. But since these single use cards can only be used by the specified payee in the specified amount, they offer unparalleled protection against fraud. Considering the focus on fraud prevention, virtual cards warrant a more prominent place in organizations’ vendor payment strategy.

-The 2019 AFP Electronic Payments Survey reported that the cost to convert customers from paper checks to electronic payments was the number one drawback to conversion. This cost was not considered in the Benchmark survey, but treasury and finance professionals are well aware of the ongoing manual labor involved in enabling vendors for electronic payment. What they may not be aware of is that Fintechs such as Corpay have large, cloud-based acceptance networks and take on that effort on behalf of their customers.

-The study looked at seven different payment methods. The majority of companies are using at least three but some may be using all seven. That means they are likely running several discrete payment workflows. Where that is the case, they could achieve further efficiencies with a payment automation solution that consolidates all payment methods into a single workflow.

-Companies with annual revenue between $1-$4.9 billion are the heaviest users of wire payments, which can cost up to 12 times as much as a check. This is likely due to an organization with a global footprint that is sending more wires to vendors overseas. Companies this size may not yet have a global operations infrastructure and access to local payment systems and banking partners. These companies could benefit from a payments partner specializing in cross-border payments.

As the Benchmark survey notes, the cost to receive a check is typically half of what it is to issue one, and large AR departments have efficient, often touchless processes in place for processing them. Prior to the pandemic, that meant vendors often did not feel the same sense of urgency to digitize payments.

During the pandemic, convincing vendors to accept digital payments became a much easier discussion as both parties were motivated to move to an electronic format while their teams were working remotely. That created a tailwind for the move off paper checks, which has been far slower than anticipated in North America. Streamlining your payment process and migrating to less expensive, more efficient payment methods should be your priority for 2022.

By Corpay, a FLEETCOR company.

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Archives, Banking, Banking on Global Trade, Global Trade Daily

Fintech Market to Reach $324 billion in 2026

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U+ today released “The State of Fintech 2022,” a report that analyzes disruptive fintech trends and industry projections including banking, payments and insurance. The report outlines how and why investors have poured $91.5 billion into fintech firms in 2021, nearly doubling the previous year’s figure. As a result, analysts predict the fintech market to reach $324 billion by 2026.

“The growth and investment in fintech points to closer collaboration between startups and incumbents, as well as regulators, investors and even consumers, as the industry searches for cost reductions, client-friendly experiences and technology upgrades,” said U+ Founder and Chief Executive Officer Jan Beránek. “Since technology use has redefined the financial services industry, incumbents and challengers are competing to acquire and analyze customer data. In an attempt to secure brand loyalty, developing client-friendly experiences is a key focus.”

With convenience and enhanced customer experiences at the top of the priority list in fintech, the U+ report also reveals a demand for software engineers to help businesses keep up with the fast-paced tech initiatives.

Innovative banking solutions have arrived in a major way, with about 30% of all global banking customers using at least one non-traditional financial service. With more than 26,000 fintech companies worldwide, now is the time for all financial service providers to secure their place within this sector, even if it means collaborating with innovative partners to lead the industry using big data and artificial intelligence, for example.

U+ also selected the Top Fintech Innovators after extensive market research, leveraging databases including CB Insights and Crunchbase. Market share, along with the amount and date of funds raised, were also considered as selection criteria.

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Archives, Global Trade Daily, International Trade, Special Reports

The Trade Finance Landscape in 2022: Automation and Digitalization

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Given the rapid pace of digital transformation, it is often surprising to learn how many critical industries and services remain behind the curve, relying on manual processes and large-scale paper documentation. Global supply chain disruption resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted that international trade finance is one such industry.

International trade finance remains mired in an avalanche of paper, a plethora of conflicting national regulations and processes, and systems that do not communicate well with each other. These burdens, coupled with the industry’s failure to adapt quickly to more modern methods of analyzing credit eligibility, hit medium, small, and microenterprises (MSMEs) particularly hard. As MSMEs account for a large part of total global trade and are the largest employers worldwide, it is far past time for the industry to make changes that provide greater and simpler access.

This article reviews digital transformation efforts in global trade finance and considers the prospects for digitization and automation in the coming years.

The state of digitalization in global trade finance

After a drastic dip in 2020 as COVID-19 shut down countries worldwide, the international flow of goods rebounded strongly in 2021, and significant growth is expected to continue in 2022. And, according to the World Trade Organization, 80 to 90% of this flow is dependent on trade finance.

Unfortunately, trade finance is heavily document-dependent at every stage, and the burden of document preparation is only exacerbated by the need to verify and process documents along the way. In addition to being environmentally questionable in an era of extreme sensitivity to climate change, the paper-intensive processes underlying traditional trade finance are inefficient and create unnecessary access barriers.

It is somewhat surprising how far behind trade finance remains, given the advances in automation of many other financial processes and the benefits of digitalization. For example, automating invoicing and payment processing can lead to 15.4% more invoices getting paid on time, which is crucial for business success.

Despite the availability of tools and systems that can easily facilitate the automation of current manual processes, trade finance participants, especially banks and financial institutions, remain behind the curve. 

The ICC’s annual report on global trade finance presents discouraging data about automation efforts. It reports that 45% of banks still have completely manual document verification processes, more than 30% have fully manual settlement and financing processes, and around 25% rely on manual processes for credit issuance and advising.

The net effect of reliance on traditional methods is that many organizations cannot effectively participate in trade finance systems. Outdated modes of assessing creditworthiness, coupled with overly burdensome documentation demands, combine to deny equal access to many businesses. And this result hinders global trade.

Roadblocks to digitalization

Not surprisingly, many objections to digitalization and standardization are familiar mantras. The cost and inconvenience of implementing new systems have long been favorite protests against digital transformations, and they have raised their heads again for trade finance automation.

However, time and again, it has been shown that companies taking this “moving forward is too difficult” approach don’t maintain their position in the industry; instead, they quickly fall behind their competitors. Indeed, the more forward-thinking companies can expect to reap the most important benefit from their investment – increased revenue growth and profits.

A more compelling concern about digitalization is data privacy and security. These concerns are more than relevant in an era where data privacy regulations are becoming more prevalent and more stringent, and the number of cybercriminals is increasing rapidly. But frankly, there is far more opportunity for data loss and misappropriation in paper-based manual systems.

Organizations can apply today’s advanced cybersecurity standards and tools to build robust and secure automated replacements for their existing manual processes. And the application of increasingly improved, artificial intelligence-based analytical tools can help financial institutions eventually make better decisions about extending finance to market participants, opening access to more organizations, and expanding both global trade and the finance market.

The International Commerce Commission digitalization plan

Recognizing the lack of progress on digitalization of international trade finance systems and the damaging effects on MSMEs, the ICC established a working group to build a new trade finance architecture. Working with McKinsey and Fung Business Intelligence, the ICC Advisory Group on Trade Finance put together a three-phase, ten-year trade finance modernization plan, which it published in late 2021.

The ICC plan attempts to address several well-recognized issues in global trade finance, including the complexity of transactions, the lack of transparency in trade finance decision-making, and the credit constraints preventing MSMEs from equal access to finance. The plan is highly ambitious and will require cooperation from governments, financial institutions, and trade organizations worldwide. But it can make trade finance simpler, more effective, and more inclusive.

While the details of the plan go far beyond the scope of this article, the plan generally proposes the development of a so-called interoperability layer. This layer is a virtual construct built by harmonizing disparate existing finance standards (specifically concerning data models and APIs), establishing new standards to address gaps in finance regulation, and creating uniform playbooks for global trade participants. Standardized automation playbooks have already achieved success in many other areas, such as closing business sales and increasing data consistency.

Phase 1 lasts 12-18 months and focuses on building buy-in for existing standards, bringing more organizations into a common framework. This phase will also identify areas where standards are lacking and propose options to fill these gaps in coverage.

Phase 2 takes place in 2-3 years. The goal of Phase 2 is to finalize the first round of standards that serve as the basis for the interoperability layer and develop standards and structures for APIs that market participants can use to access trade finance systems. In this phase, the governing body of the plan will push for greater participation, specifically from supply-side participants (i.e., financial institutions).

Phase three, which covers the next seven years, is primarily scale-up and refinement. Based on the previous years’ experience, market participants will work to improve on standards and drive usage of trade finance playbooks. Importantly, however, phase three is where architecture truly gets involved, with the launch of common systems that participants can access directly or via API.

Harmonization of laws and regulations has had varying levels of effectiveness in fields ranging from international trade to intellectual property to employment and human rights. It remains to be seen if the ICC proposal can effectively overcome the inertia that has so far gripped the trade finance industry. But if not the ICC proposal, then other digitization efforts must take place to facilitate supply chain 4.0.

Conclusion

The COVID-19 pandemic has put the global supply chain in the spotlight, unfortunately in a less than positive way. But as the world looks at how to resolve supply problems, global trade finance players have the perfect opportunity to revisit their processes and how they can facilitate international trade. As with so many other industries, the obvious answer is automation and digitalization. Hopefully, the market will heed this call and start the change sooner rather than later.

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Archives, Banking, Global Trade Daily

Here are the Top Tips for Preventing ACH Credit Fraud

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Forced to work from home during COVID-19, accounts payable departments have accelerated plans to move away from paper checks and pay more of their suppliers by ACH. That, in turn, accelerated another trend: fraud. Through social engineering, fraud attacks on ACH credits are most commonly known as Business Email Compromises or BECs.

According to the 2020 AFP Payments and Fraud Control Survey Report, for the first time, in 2019, BEC schemes were the most common type of fraud attack experienced, with 75 percent of organizations experiencing an attack and 54 percent of those reporting financial losses. ACH credits—outgoing payments from buyer to supplier—were targeted in 37 percent of BEC schemes.

The problem has only gotten worse in 2020. In the September edition of their Fraud in the Wake of COVID-19 Benchmarking Report, the ACFE reports that 90 percent of respondents have seen an increase in cyber fraud frequency from July through August. This included BECs.

Three-quarters of respondents said that preventing and detecting fraud has become more difficult in the current environment, and more than 90 percent expect attacks to increase. Organizations are under siege, and nearly one-third have received no guidance from banking partners about mitigating ACH credit risks.

What can organizations do?

Defeating BECs requires a multi-pronged approach. Ongoing anti-fraud training is important because these emails are getting more convincing every day. Fraudsters have become experts in user data and A/B testing, which reduces elements that alert their victims of illegitimate changes to their accounts. Strong internal controls are also important and network security, which prevents parties from gaining access to internal systems.

Here are four ways to reduce your ACH credit fraud risk.

1. Handle with Care

Thwarting ACH credit fraud is all about handling supplier banking data securely, which accounts payable must have on hand to transmit their payment file to the bank. This data is often stored in the ERP system, or sometimes on an Excel spreadsheet, where AP staff has been recorded during supplier onboarding. Sometimes it’s stored when a supplier updates their information. Fraudulent change requests are one of the most frequent avenues of attack.

Let’s say you’ve got a new person in accounts payable who isn’t fully trained yet. This person gets an email from a supplier, asking to update their bank account information.

Your new hire, eager to please, fulfills the request, inputting a new routing number and bank account, unaware that a million-dollar payment to that supplier is going out the next day. Nobody realizes what’s happened until two weeks later when the real supplier calls, asking for payment.

By then, it’s too late to reel ACH payments back in. You can call the FBI and the bank. They may try to help you, but if the thieves are sophisticated enough, they’ve already moved the money to offshore accounts, and it’s completely gone.

2. Secure Information

You should never use an unsecured email for banking information updates, although a surprising number of companies still do. It’s too easy for a hacker to intercept one of those emails and use the information within it for their own means. If they get contact or bank account information, they can pose as legitimate suppliers and circumvent internal controls. Some businesses even keep information in spreadsheets or their ERPs, but systems like those aren’t designed to store data securely.

Some companies allow suppliers to update their own information in supplier portals. That might work, provided that companies manage secure portal access and verify all updates. However, if suppliers can log in and update information, it’s likely that hackers can access the same information with very little resistance.

The most sophisticated approach that I’ve seen so far includes a trained procurement team, who verifies and validates all changes that come through.

There are a couple of drawbacks to this approach. It’s a big IT investment with plenty of labor asks. Even then, it’s still prone to internal fraud. At the end of the day, even the best systems will still have their risks. The goal is to minimize them.

3. Look at Fees

Companies often try to shift the risk and time burden to others, with some success. For example, they may choose to pay their suppliers by card., which puts the risk on credit card networks. In cases of card fraud, it’s more likely that payments can be canceled or refunded.

Virtual cards offer even more security because they provide unique numbers, which can only be used by a specified supplier for a specified amount. The big drawback is that not all suppliers accept cards—there are fees to consider.

An organization I’m familiar with pays many of its suppliers with PayPal. Their supplier­­­­—most of them small businesses—are located around the world. AP doesn’t have the time or staff to verify payment information, validate bank accounts, and deal with ongoing updates. As the intermediary, PayPal handles all that and guarantees that the funds go to the right place. But, here again, suppliers pay a hefty fee—in the neighborhood of three percent.

4. Shift the Risk

There really is no perfect system in place, which is why we’re seeing ACH credit fraud rise in tandem with the rise in ACH payments. But there is a perfect way to shift the risk to companies that are built to withstand the verification and validation burdens. Today’s payment automation providers manage supplier information, so individual companies no longer have to spend valuable time on it. It’s similar to handing the reins to IT and procurement departments to lock down the database and institute controls. The difference is that working with a provider removes the time investment and liability.

Think of payment automation providers as a means to outsource risk. Their sole focus is to ensure secure, on-time payments to your suppliers without causing costly overhead. They have perfected the systems and processes for hundreds of thousands of AP departments across the United States, and in ways that businesses would be hard-pressed to replicate.

Businesses used to worry about check fraud above all else. While they still have to pay attention to that aspect, it’s become a low-tech form of fraud that’s easy to understand and plan for. As companies shift to electronic payment means, they’re increasingly experiencing sophisticated cyberattacks, which target much larger sums and are harder to defend against. With such attacks growing, businesses may find that outsourcing professionals is the best defense.

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Jeremiah Bennett is the Director of Information Security for Corpay, a FLEETCOR Company which helps companies of all sizes simplify how they pay suppliers, facilitate treasury payments, and reduce risk.

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Archives, Banking, Global Trade Daily

9 Ways to Improve your Cash Management Systems

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Cash management is always important, but it’s certainly gotten a lot more attention in the past 18 months. The COVID-19 Pandemic spurred me to realize that the enterprise cash management process has a lot of room for improvement.

Amidst all the uncertainty, companies have to keep a very close eye on cash. At the same time, remote work can make cash management harder. It’s hard to keep track of all the paper the payment process traditionally requires when everyone is working virtually.

When virtual work became imperative, there was a cash management scramble. Suddenly, all eyes were on the amount of time and manual effort cash management required. AP professionals were shuffling back and forth from the office to pick up paper invoices and check stock. AR professionals were trying to figure out how to get to the post office or lock box and get checks deposited to the bank. Invoices and checks could be sitting for many days before they could be processed. It was hard to know what was going to happen and when. The lack of consistency, visibility and control were in plain view.

This pain and urgency caused some people to take action. Cash and paper check payments declined 16% year-over-year in 2020, slipping to 45% of B2B payments. Automated Clearing House (ACH) payments rose above $10 trillion for the first time in history.

We saw a lot of companies fast-track payment automation in response to the COVID-19 Pandemic. Nvoicepay has been in business for 12 years, and a third of our customers signed up for payment automation since the start of the COVID-19 Pandemic. We also saw a 26% leap in vendors in our supplier network hopping off the check-only wagon and reaching out to enroll to get paid by virtual card or ACH.

45% is still a lot of check payments, though. Companies are still sending out thousands and thousands of checks every day. Too much time and effort, and too little visibility and control is still the story wherever check payments are being made. Organizations have simply learned to live with the pain.

Why does anyone tolerate such a painful status quo? Either they don’t know there’s a better way, or they’re so absorbed in managing day-to-day efforts that they can’t imagine a different future or feel it may be too costly to change from the way things have always been done.

There is a better way,

When you stop to consider the full impact of payment automation on cash management, it becomes obvious how much better the future could be:

Reduced process costs. By reducing the cost of making payments you’ll improve cash flow right away. Paper costs go away. All that printing, signing, stuffing, stamping and mailing is replaced by just a few clicks. All payments can be made in a single workflow, instead of the three or four you’re probably running.

Card rebates. When you let go of paper checks, you’ll be able to pay more vendors by virtual card. Virtual card payments can generate rebates, which certainly helps with cash flow.

Less time fixing errors. Payment errors are expensive time-wasters. Even though it only takes about 10 or 15 minutes to fix an error, it adds up. It leads to interruption–you have to stop whatever else you’re doing and fix errors repeatedly.

Fewer hiccups. It takes time to void and reissue checks and get the right amount of money to the right place which complicates cash management. When you automate your payments, you don’t have to go hunting for old checks or piles of invoices.

Less opportunity for fraud. Checks still carry the highest fraud risk of any payment methods. Your bank account and your routing number are right there–no phishing or hacking required. The last thing you need when cash is tight is to have money stolen.

Reduced ACH fraud costs. ACH fraud is rising, mainly through business email compromise schemes (BECs). Effectively managing and safeguarding vendor data might require a lot of IT and staff time. Most companies don’t have the resources to do it effectively. Payment automation companies often are able to do that work for you.

Less time handling inquiries. Payment automation companies can handle vendor and customer questions, further freeing up staff time.

Greater visibility. Cash management is so much more efficient when you can see the status of all your payments in real time. With the right payment partner, you should gain access to detailed reporting and insights on your cash flow.

More flexibility. When you can pay everything electronically, and all it takes is a few clicks, you can time your payments with precision. This precision allows you to let go of trying to manage float.

Though the COVID-19 pandemic put a spotlight on painful, inefficient cash management issues, the reality is that the enterprise cash management process has been struggling for a long time.

Efficiency, visibility and control are the most important facets of cash management. If you’re doing paper processing, you might be missing something important on one of those three fronts. When you take advantage of digital payment methods, automate processes and manage your staff’s time better, cash flow management becomes significantly easier.

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Mark Penserini is the Vice President, Partner Management at Nvoicepay, a FLEETCOR company.  He has over 25 years of operational and technical experience specializing in project of management across Healthcare, Finance, and IT operations. 

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Archives, Banking, Global Trade Daily, Trade Credit Insurance

ITFA Takes A Harmonized Step Towards Trade Credit Insurance

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The ITFA (International Trade and Forfaiting Association) recently released a new initiative in the form of a Basel III-compliant trade credit insurance policy form. Designed to assist insurers and financial institutions to negotiate new deals and help establish a standardized Basel III policy, the IFTA’s initiative also represents an effort to help trade credit insurers in an era where insurance companies are seriously re-evaluating how they operate.

Trade credit insurers, and the insurance industry as a whole, have been greatly challenged by the economic fallout created by the pandemic and the lockdowns. The frequency of insolvencies from commercial customers due to financial difficulty has risen greatly. Normally, credit insurers would cancel (or at least limit) coverage for buyers who display signs of being unable to pay. 

But due to the serious economic situation created by the pandemic, there is now the dramatically increased risk of trade credit being withdrawn across the board. In this article, we’ll cover why insurance plans including TCIs have become more relevant since the start of the pandemic, how the IFTA’s new policy should help trade insurers, and then what we can expect the near future to look like for the insurance industry overall.

What is trade credit insurance?

Trade credit insurance, or TCI, protects businesses against the inability of commercial customers to pay for services or products. The inability of customers to pay may result from financial woes, bankruptcy, societal upheaval, or other factors. The purpose of a TCI plan is therefore to help businesses ensure they still receive proper cash flow as a result of doing business with a customer who won’t or can’t pay. Banks, in particular, utilize trade credit insurance for capital relief and to reduce financial risk when conducting transactions. 

In many industries, it’s common for customers to take out a line of credit in order to make a large purchase. Of course, any business that lends money to customers is taking a risk that the total amount lent (in addition to any interest) will not be repaid. It’s even a greater risk when the debt is unsecured and there is no collateral to reinforce the loan. 

A comprehensive TCI plan will compensate a business for any unpaid debt, depending on what the coverage limits and other details of the plan are. Since most lines of credit that businesses give for large purchases are unsecured, having a TCI plan in place will mitigate much of the risk. In other words, businesses with a TCI plan at the very least should be more comfortable with extending lines of credit to customers, and they will have a backup plan in the event that the entire debt is not paid. 

Why the pandemic has demonstrated a need for insurance 

Due to greater financial uncertainty since the pandemic began, there has been a drastic increase in the number of businesses and individuals alike applying for insurance coverage. It’s not just TCI plans either. The number of business owners applying for life insurance coverage, for instance, has increased dramatically as a means to protect their financial assets in the event that the worse happens.

It’s not hard to see why. Covid has proven to be deadly for patients who are older and/or have existing health issues. That’s most likely why the number of adults who have purchased a life insurance plan has increased to 50% of adults in Canada and 52% of adults in the United States. 

If anything, the pandemic has demonstrated that there is a very real need for businesses and organizations to have an insurance plan (or plans) in place to help ensure financial stability in an increasingly volatile era. It’s also demonstrated a greatly increased demand for insurance coverage across a number of different policies and plans. Other insurance plans that are in greatly increased demand from business owners include general liability insurance, worker’s compensation insurance, and commercial property insurance. 

And now that insurance companies (in general) are experiencing much higher demand since the start of the pandemic, there is much more uncertainty in regards to the timing and extent of claims, as well as the fact that most insurance agencies are being forced to increase premiums and raise additional capital to help reverse the decrease in return on equity. Like the businesses they are insuring, insurance companies themselves are likewise at increased risk.

Even though the policy by the ITFA is in regards to trade credit specifically, it may provide us with a blueprint on how risks and costs may be reduced for insurance companies overall as well as the financial institutions they work with. 

What does the ITFA’s new policy form do?

Basel III is an international regulatory framework that was made as a response to the 2008 financial crisis. The new ‘harmonized’ Basel III-compliant policy form that was released is designed to help insurance companies and banks negotiate new deals as well as standardize a trade credit policy. 

The new form covers receivables policies and is intended to generate more insurable opportunities while keeping costs and time spent to a minimum. As noted previously, banks and financial institutions often rely on TCIs for capital relief and to keep risk to a minimum. The issue, however, is that banks and TCI agencies often each possess their own Basel III policy forms. 

When a bank and TCI agency attempt to work together, many hours or even days are spent on negotiating forms. This is difficult because all forms being negotiated are kept confidential and much work goes into settling on similar wording. Needless to say, negotiations can be extended and expensive. 

The goal of the ITFA’s form is to ‘harmonize’ wording during negotiations between banks and insurance companies so that two primary goals are accomplished: one, that insurance carriers can more clearly based on their services provided and the details of their policies versus policy wordings, and so that banks can focus more on their pricing. To put it into simpler terms, it aims to standardize how insurance policies are worded. 

As Sean Edwards, the CEO and Chairman of ITFA stated at the 2021 ITFA conference, “Consistency, predictability and a reliable form is paramount to regulatory bodies further recognizing trade credit insurance as a viable risk transfer mechanism for capital substitution. We need all banks, insurance companies, law firms, and brokers moving in the same direction if we are to grow the overall industry.”

Streamlining policy negotiations between banks and insurance companies with standardized wording is certainly one way to provide relief to insurance companies, and one that could be applied to other insurance companies outside of TCI carriers as well. 

Other actions include governments offering their support to insurance markets by guaranteeing transactions made by insurance companies through reinsurance agreements and, in the case of the European Union, having export credit agencies ensure short-term trading risks instead of private insurance companies. 

Conclusion

As the world starts to emerge out of the economic crisis generated by the pandemic, private businesses, banks, and insurance companies are all at greater risk than they were before. Insurance companies including TCIs are in a position where their services are in much greater demand than before, and they need to minimize financial losses. The move by the ITFA to standardize language and streamline negotiations between banks and insurers is one-way costs can be reduced. 

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Archives, Banking, Global Trade Daily

How Forex Trading Is Largely Expanding Globally

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Forex trading is growing rapidly around the world. For traders, this can be a welcome sign. For forex brokers and banks, there are many reasons for forex to expand globally. Forex trading is expanding so quickly because of its convenience and accessibility. In this article, you’ll see some of these reasons why forex is expanding in popularity around the globe.

Definition of Forex trading

Forex trading is the term given to the exchange of one currency for another, in order to profit from fluctuations in relative values. The forex market is a global marketplace and has become larger than stock markets with trillions of dollars per day traded between international currencies. This business includes buying one currency on speculation that it will increase in value against other currencies, or selling one currency on speculation that it will decrease in value against other currencies such as Bitcoin and Ethereum.

It should be noted there are risks involved when forex trading; however forex traders can still make profits over time periods due to these prices changing relatively quickly compared to stocks where changes take place much slower.

Forex trading is an international market

The forex market is truly an international one. Day traders and forex brokers are not limited to the forex markets in their own nation but can operate anywhere around the globe.

The forex industry has been growing steadily for years now and will continue to do so as more people see it as a good investment vehicle or currency converter package. If you want some investors who already invest in foreign currencies, then this could be your main source of potential clients. It’s really just like any other form of business as long as you have a sound forex trading strategy, you can be successful.

What are forex traders doing?

The forex market is one of the most exciting markets to trade in and there are several things that forex traders do on a daily basis. A trader will need to analyze the currency data for each pair they want to trade before taking any positions. This includes overall sentiment combined with technical analysis such as chart patterns or momentum indicators. When it comes time to execute trades, your forex broker may take care of this for you but some people prefer executing their own orders manually using a platform like MetaTrader (MT). There could also be other tasks involved if you’re working as part of an international team: coordinating updates between forex traders and forex brokers in different time zones, fielding requests from forex clients for assistance with strategy or execution of trades.

As of now, this market has spread across the whole world and it’s not planning on slowing down. The latest expansion came in the form of Fsca forex brokers in South Africa and will continue to grow every year. Getting into this game has become more profitable than ever because of this.

The forex market has grown exponentially in the last decade

If you look back into the last 10 years, forex trading has grown exponentially. Looking at the forex market in 2008, there were about $US$48 trillion traded, and today that number is closer to $US$80 trillion which shows a growth of over 50%.

Forecasting for the forex industry’s future looks very bright with estimates from analysts predicting it has grown by another 33% before 2020. The forex industry as a whole employs more than 400 thousand people across its various sectors (such as retail sales, IT, finance) so this kind of expansion could create up to 250 thousand new jobs during those five years if history is any indication. These numbers are also expected to increase overseas due to heightened globalization efforts seen throughout Europe especially since Brexit along with other forex markets such as India, China, and Russia.

It will continue to grow at a steady rate, with forex trading making up 40% of the world’s total market.

It’s a global industry that has seen over $5 trillion in daily turnover

The forex market has seen a global revolution over the past few years. In forex trading, people all around the world participate in buying and selling currencies with one another on a daily basis to make money off of fluctuations in exchange rates.

Forex traders are typically active investment professionals who trade forex as their primary occupation. It’s estimated that up to 80% of forex volume is traded electronically by computers (automated forex trading).

Forecasting currency rate movements can be challenging but it also carries substantial risk for failure. However, successful forex traders may earn more than $300 per hour or even more depending on how much they’re willing to invest into this type of venture.

The markets are open 24 hours a day from Sunday night through Friday afternoon. Forex trading is a global forex investment opportunity for individuals, funds and organizations of all types and sizes who want to invest and hedge their currency risk in the international markets.

How does forex trading work

Now it’s time to learn the process of forex trading.

-forex traders have a specific currency pair which they monitor on their computer screens

-they offer these currencies to the trader and charge for them

-The individual then decides whether or not he wants to buy those pairs of currencies from the broker, with his own money. If so, he will make an order that tells him how much forex he is willing to spend. The broker can either accept this request (in which case it’s called “taking” the trade) or reject it (it’s called “nixing”). When accepted by a broker, it becomes what is known as “a live deal”. Forex trades are completed in real-time, so when your order goes through you’ll know it.

-forex traders can also trade on a forex exchange

-in this case, they are trading currency pairs with other people (usually from the same country) that go through the forex market at about the same time as them

As you can see, forex trading is here to stay and it’s expanding all the time. It has become a very profitable market that sees newcomers almost every day. People who educate themselves in this business have a huge chance of success and, since it’s a global market, that will result in enormous wealth. If you’re keen to learn a new trade, this is perhaps perfect for you.

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Archives, Banking, Global Trade Daily, International Trade

Is Saudi Arabia Leading the Race for FinTech Financial Inclusion?

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It can be hard to keep up with Fintech. Just as the sector appears to be settling into some form of pattern in the UK and USA, where the next notable round of innovation is widely expected to be the automation that is changing the industry, new markets and new centers are emerging. 

One of these – and one that was thought to be rather unlikely until fairly recently – is Saudi Arabia. Though the Middle East has long had a promising fintech sector, this has largely been confined to Saudi’s smaller neighbor, UAE. 

Now, a range of Saudi startups have raised large sums in seed capital, and seem poised to make a major impact on the industry. In this article, we’ll look at these recent success stories, and explore when they mean for Saudi’s nascent fintech sector. 

Saudi Arabia: A New Frontier?

First, let’s take a look at those recent headlines. Back in April, a promising but relatively small Saudi fintech startup, Tamara, announced that it had raised $110 million for its Series A funding. This came as a real shock to industry, and with good reasons – not only was this the largest level of Series A funding ever raised by a Saudi startup, but it was the largest Series A ever raised by a middle eastern startup.

Perhaps the news shouldn’t have come as much of a surprise, though. Observant investors noted that the Saudi fintech sector has been growing steadily over the past few years – from just 10 startups registered under the Fintech Saudi initiative in 2018, to a total of 155 in 2020. And with extra companies comes extra funding – from January to May this year, fintech startups based in Saudi Arabia raised almost $130 million, a whopping jump compared to the $23 million raised by the sector from 2015-2020.

This growth is also likely to continue in the medium term. This level of investment is proving to be an incentive for Western fintech startups, as well, who are now looking to the Middle East as a potential new market for their services. Whether they will be able to take advantage of the size of the market in the region will, however, depend on a number of factors.

As we will see, the biggest problem standing in the way of creating a dynamic Fintech sector in Saudi is not the demand for innovative banking services – that is certainly strong enough. Rather, it is a somewhat traditional banking sector that may be reluctant to open up to technology companies.

Growth Across the Region

Saudi certainly has some well-established models to follow when it comes to catalyzing fintech growth. Bahrain, for instance, is widely regarded as having some of the most fintech-friendly banking regulations in the world, and the sector in that company is growing rapidly. Similarly, Egypt is seen as a real growth market for the sector, given the country’s huge population and a government that seems to be supportive of novel approaches to small business finance.

In both of these countries, government support has been key to encouraging the fintech sector, and Saudi Arabia appears to have recognized this. The Fintech Saudi initiative is the flag bearer for this support, and was launched back in 2018 by the Saudi Central Bank. The bank partnered with the Capital Markets Authority (CMA) in the kingdom, which has played a pivotal role in providing investment funding for fintech startups. 

The goals of these investments are certainly ambitious. The mission statement of the CMA states that it is tasked with “transforming Saudi Arabia into an innovative fintech hub with a thriving and responsible fintech ecosystem”. As part of this wide mandate, Fintech Saudi facilitates the licensing process for startups, connects entrepreneurs with investors, service providers, and banks, and has an accelerator program run by Flat6Labs.

This government support is, in turn, part of a broader change across the region, in which governments who were previously averse to change are embracing new ways of doing business. Just as the oil industry is changing, and becoming more transparent, so is the financial sector. And that will have impacts far beyond investors and bank staff because fintech might just be able to make banking truly inclusive.

Open Banking and Inclusion

If, as seems likely, Saudi Arabia becomes a leader in the fintech space, it will act not just as a catalyst for the development of fintech solutions across the region. It will also be the biggest test run yet of one of the central promises of fintech – that this technology can open up banking in a way never seen before.

On the one hand, Saudi Arabia seems like an unlikely place to be at the forefront of inclusive banking. The country is still very conservative and has some of the most secretive banking practices in the world. However, there are signs that the kingdom is open to change – both socially and in regard to the way it does business.

This has been overtly stated by Fintech Saudi, which is developing an open baking framework for the kingdom. Their aim, they say, is to force Saudi banks to be more open, and to share data about their activities more widely. This, in turn, will likely make it easier for under-represented groups in the country – women, most of all – to access banking services. 

At the moment, many guest workers and women in the country are under-served by financial institutions, and by allowing them to open accounts it is hoped that the country can become more open generally. In addition, fintech can help these workers to make international payments more easily, sending money back home and sharing the benefits of the strident Saudi economy.

The Challenges

Of course, changing the way in which a conservative country runs its banking system is not going to be easy. The Fintech sector in the country, while attracting a lot of funding, will have to overcome some real challenges if it is going to succeed.

One of these is a skills gap. A recent report from Fintech Saudi, for instance, shows that hiring qualified talent was the primary challenge for 40% of startups in the fintech space. Without qualified workers to power the work of startups, it’s likely that these will either stall or be forced to move their activities (and their profits) elsewhere.

Secondly, there is the issue of cybersecurity. Saudi has been a major target of cyberattacks in recent years, many of which appear to have originated in Iran. While the average fintech startup might not be a target of global cyber-weapons, the sheer number of common cybersecurity risks that the average Saudi company experiences every year could be enough to deter some startups and investors from working in the country.

The Bottom Line

That’s not to say that these challenges don’t have solutions, of course.  Open banking has progressed in two ways around the globe in recent years, either via regulators forcing traditional banks to embrace it and work with fintech startups (as is the case in the European Union) or (as we see in the US) incumbent banks opting to partner with open banking providers to keep pace with innovation.

If Saudi Arabia can do the same, while also recognizing that both talent acquisition and customer service are key to success in Fintech, there is no reason why it cannot emulate the success of its neighbors, and become the next global fintech hub.

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Archives, Banking, Global Trade Daily, Special Reports

Why Credit Cards Could Be the Next Big Opportunity in B2B Payments

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With the advent of widespread remote work, businesses have made impressive leaps in eliminating checks and adopting electronic supplier payments. These changes primarily translated to increasing the number of ACH or Direct Deposit payments made. According to Nacha—the governing body for the ACH network—business-to-business payments for supply chains, supplier payments, bills, and other transfers increased by almost 11% in 2020. But as organizations adopt electronic payment processes, there’s another strategic opportunity for AP to consider: electronic credit card.

Most companies’ payments flow through AP, yet few AP departments today are making significant use of credit cards to their fullest potential. Historically, companies use credit cards as a decentralized way to manage expenses. In order to do their jobs, employees need to spend efficiently, without going through a bureaucratic process. Traditional commercial programs have been focused on companies giving their employees purchasing cards (p-cards) or travel and entertainment cards (T&E cards) which they could use for supplies, meals, or departmental expenses such as software subscriptions, and marketing expenses—items that would be classified as indirect spending. However, while the benefits of these programs are clear, even in a depressed travel environment, it falls short of the full potential of complete credit card utilization.

Old vs. New

Companies can establish guardrails for spending on these cards. They can add controls to limit employee spending or only allow them to spend in certain places. There are also mechanisms in place to do post-transaction reviews and allow for remediation for inappropriate spending. Due to the combination of convenience and control, finance departments often think about cards as tools for employee productivity, with customizable spending controls.

This only touches on one aspect of company spending, however. Companies spend far more of their budget through traditional purchase orders and invoices for direct expenses like materials, components, freight, and labor. The idea that AP could utilize a card for direct expenses has still not been widely accepted.

Cards provide easy access to working capital and offer rewards like cash back or points. Many companies appreciate that cards are a better electronic payment option due to these benefits. The question then becomes: how do you build a successful card program in accounts payable? Generally, businesses have to make card processes work within their pre-existing AP infrastructure, which usually includes a supplier interaction component and a technical component that traditional players (banking institutions) in this space are not fully equipped to handle.

For example, banks primarily look at credit cards as another form of lending. They offer credit lines, which their customers spend against and pay back. Paying supplier by card usually enables businesses to reach their top 10 or 20 suppliers. That’s usually considered a successful lending program, but to interact with more suppliers, integrate with an ERP, or offer enhanced reconciliation data, banks don’t usually have the technical resources, because it’s beyond their traditional lending model.

Incorporating the New

Bank business models usually focus on building and maintaining a vast merchant acceptance network. You can walk into tens of millions of locations worldwide and if they have the Mastercard or Visa logo, you can use your credit card there, no questions asked. But when it comes to payments for suppliers, the acceptance network is inconsistent. Some suppliers don’t accept payment by card, or only accept them from certain customers depending on speed of payment, the margins, and the type of product that they’re selling. Due to these factors, paying by bank-issued card requires the vendor engagement process to include finding suppliers that already accept specific card types, ensure they accept that payment type from other customers, and locate new card-accepting suppliers.

That’s where fintechs really shine, because their business models are built to incorporate a supplier engagement process aimed at getting more spend on cards. Where banks generally looking for the top 10 to 20 suppliers, which might account for 70 percent of your total spend, fintechs go after the tail—that 30 percent of spend that probably accounts for more than 60 percent of your suppliers and takes more work to get on board. Essentially, they build out a B2B acceptance network inside the credit card acceptance network.

Scaling the Mountain Towards Change

Operationalized re-engagement models are a particularly important component of this business model because most companies churn 10 to 20 percent of their suppliers each year. Within two years, business’ supplier pools are different by 20 percent from when they began, so they must reach out constantly to maintain certain payment acceptances. While banks don’t always have the capacity to offer supplier acceptance maintenance, fintechs thrive when they include those services in their business model.

There are multiple benefits of capturing tail spend on cards. For example, doing so opens the door to paying more suppliers electronically, earning businesses more working capital and a higher potential for rebates. Virtual cards come with security and controls that plastic cards do not usually possess, including single-use numbers that are tied to unique suppliers and payment amounts. Tag on reconciliation data options, and the system becomes something that benefits accounts receivable as much as accounts payable. This opens more suppliers up to the idea of accepting electronic forms of payment.

Fintechs—technology-focused by nature—build their systems with a holistic viewpoint in mind, preferring to create software that doesn’t sacrifice one business’ operations for another’s. By enhancing the system end-to-end, previously reluctant accounts receivable teams, who felt strong-armed into giving up outdated payment processes, often become more willing and interested to learn about electronic alternatives.

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Rick Fletcher is the Comdata President of Corporate Payments, where he specializes in sales, marketing and product strategy, operations, and customer service.