denotes premium content | Jan 7 2009 Trade & Forfaiting Review magazine archive
Volume 4 Issue 8
Features
A safer and fairer alternative?
Retired banker Albert Claveria has developed a new system of bank guarantee that he is proposing to international bodies such as the ICC. The ‘Bilateral Guarantee’ promises to improve unsafe documentary credit systems. He outlines his proposition below.
American psyche
TFR asked trade heads at the three leading US trade and export finance banks to talk about the state of the market – about aggression, emerging market blips, technology, and margins.
Big appetite and big risks
Sergei Gudoshnikov, economist at the International Sugar Organisation in London, gives his personal views as to the peculiarities, risks and rewards of the sugar trade in the former Soviet Union, including how to tackle defaults.
China lines up the assets
Dips in Asia’s economic fortunes following 1997 have seen Chinese banks restructure, appetite for deals return and the increasing acceptance of forfaiting as a product. Holger Kebernik, Head of Forfaiting Greater China at WestLB in Shanghai explains further.
Moving ahead and regaining credibility
Heike Meier, General Manager of ROM Aval-Financial Services, the co-operation partner of WestLB Forfaiting Division in Romania, reports about the country’s risk profile and trade finance possibilities.
Ripe for business
Russia’s lot has improved recently – on the commodities side, on the bank side, as far as its risk profile is concerned. John Connell, Senior Manager, UK Business Development, at Moscow Narodny Bank in London, considers this risk profile in light of recent improvements.
Steeling against risks
Christopher Bachofen has responsibility for structured trade finance business in the CIS at Stemcor Trade Finance Ltd, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Stemcor Holdings. Stemcor is one of the largest privately-owned steel traders in the world, with a network of over 30 offices in 26 countries. Here, he gives a trading company’s perspective of the market situation in the CIS.
bolero.net and tradecard: spot the difference
Clear blue water or common ground? Guy Rey-Herme, President and COO of TradeCard, Inc and Peter Scott, Commercial Director of bolero.net, address exclusively for e-mmerce the questions that all of us would like answered about the two online trade systems. Which system has a payment function? Are deals being done online securely daily? Will the two systems get together one day?
bolero.net: the community keeps growing
bolero.net has announced the next wave of companies to join its partner programme and also agreed deals with BNP Paribas, Sun Microsystems, Surecomp and EMETRA. Dennis Chong explains more.
conference update: Electric event!
Representatives from the world of trade and export finance gathered in London in June and New York in July to attend two events hosted by e-mmerce and events manager IBC/Informa. The events attracted around 100 delgates at each venue - from financial institutions, freight forwarders, customs and customs brokers, exporters and traders, law firms, credit insurers and consultancies.
documentary processing online: breaking the window
Rory Kaplan, Vice-President of Sales and Product at Level Next Inc, a company that designs, develops and deploys global trade banking systems (including BankBoston's TradeKey system), recalls the challenge of moving a Windows-based documentary processing system for banks over to the web.
electronic security: trust, security and the e-commerce economy
While the acceptance of electronic signatures has been sanctioned in the US, it still has a way to go in the rest of the world. What is there to back up high-value global transactions on the internet until some worldwide standard emerges? Jim Hewitt of CertCo, a leading technology and business solutions company that develops and implements public key infrastructure (PKI)-based trust, security and risk management solutions for e-commerce, talks about current trust and security standards, as well as advanced technologies.
freight forwarding: waste management online
Mars subsidiary Freight Traders has just launched a new online service to match shippers and carriers using a reverse auction set-up and hopefully cut down on wasteful empty back loads and other drains on revenue. Robin Bingham talks to them.
interview: trade's market maker
Mark Santacrose is CEO of one of the most interesting and dynamic e-commerce companies that work in the trade and export area. Entrade Inc is not even a year old, but has already created several leading online commodity marketplaces, including TruckCenter.com and Tradetextile.com. Here, he talks about strategy, barriers to progress, educating the marketplace, and the crash in e-business stocks.
online loan trading: leaving the banks behind
The world of bankers and technologists are converging. A recent high profile move from B-2-T (banking to technology) is Hernan Narea, formerly of Chase Manhattan in New York. He has become CEO of LoanQuorum, LLC, the internet-based trading exchange for secondary bank loans. Patricia McDonough, Founder and President of McDonough & Associates, LLC, an independent public relations consultancy specialising in new media and high technology clients, explains more.
trade finance websites: lagging behind online?
Whreas the world of e-finance moves steadily towards the development of online formats in areas such as online brokerage and business-to-consumer online banking, it seems that trade finance is still very much an untouched area. Dusan Stojanovic is the founder of Benefide Innovation International, a web agency providing consultancy and implementation services to the financial services and insurance sectors. He looks at several trade finance companies' web offerings.
tradecard: a deal is closed
TradeCard Inc, the online international trade transaction network for buyers and sellers, has closed an electronic deal 'first', while announcing agreements with several B2B e-commerce companies, a testing company, a retailer and a bank. Rupert Sayer finds out more.
