denotes premium content | Jan 7 2009 Trade & Forfaiting Review magazine archive
Volume 5 Issue 1
Features
ELECTRONIC TRADE: bolero.net - Fighting the criticism
bolero.net was launched in 1999 as the definitive way forward for putting trade and exports online and eliminating time and costs burdens. Two years on and there are only two active trading chains in use but a seemingly vast array of other signed-up partners in the field of banking freighting and shipping insurance technology and IT who haven't taken the plunge yet. What's preventing the market from wholesale adoption of something that has been proven to increase efficiency and cut trading costs? It's not as simple as this as Rupert Sayer finds out.
DEAL ANALYSIS: ABN AMRO’s Russian oil pre-export structure
Mitigating currency and transferability risks are central issues for banks looking to arrange and syndicate Russian pre-export financings. Now ABN AMRO has arranged and sold down two such deals using its newly developed Lucille structure that it claims offers the market the first true pre-export financings for Russian companies. Philip Carter reports.
DEAL ANALYSIS: COCOBOD - Still Africa’s darling?
Right on cue, Cocobod’s annual cocoa-backed refinancing in Ghana has come round again, with the usual faces at the lending table. The deal hasn’t changed much in years, but below the surface the margin has bounced up and down and the playing field is changing. Rupert Sayer looks at ‘Africa’s best commodity deal’.
EXPORT CREDIT AGENCIES: Having an identity crisis
David Clarke looks at how the world’s export credit agencies are looking online for new solutions. They already have a fight on their hands from competitors.
LATIN ROUNDTABLE: THE VIEW FROM ASIA
We asked three leading Asian-based trade specialists from the areas of export financing, forfaiting and commodity trading their impressions of Latin America-Asia trade flows and opportunities.
LEGAL ISSUES: Market judgement
Sunil Gadhia, Partner at Stephenson Harwood in London, and Michael Sullivan, Partner at Piliero, Goldstein, Jenkins & Sullivan in New York, compare notes about legal decisions affecting the market in the past year.
TRADE FINANCE INDEX: Great returns - if you can bear the risks
LTP Trade Finance Index from LTP Risk Management gives its July performance update. The Index has seen some of its highest returns this year, but Argentina and the US slow-down keep risks high.
YOUR SAY: Rescuing digital development
Learning the lessons of a new economy hasn’t come easy to policy-makers in the development community or their private sector counterparts. The hype surrounding the new economy must yield promptly to more effectively-designed technology solutions for ongoing development efforts. Groups like the World Bank, for instance, ought to put its money where its mouth is, argue Steve Rynecki, Director of Strategic Partnerships, and Casey Wolfe, Vice-President of Internet Technologies at ECI, a Washington, DC-based international communications consulting firm.
bolero.net: steel, samba and SWIFT
bolero.net has teamed up with steel raw materials site CoreMarkets, while signing up Brazilian bank Banco Itau and recruiting an XML specialist from SWIFT, as Dennis Chong writes.
customer relationship management: keeping those customers sweet
Research has shown that it costs more to attract a new customer than it does to retain existing ones. Firms who invest heavily in marketing and sales - at the expense of identifying the relationship with the customer - are in danger of taking a short-sighted approach. According to AMR Research, sales of CRM software rose from US$4.46 billion in 1999 to US$6.8 billion in 2000 and will continue to soar at a compound annual growth rate of 36% to 2004 when they will hit US$20.8 billion. The amount, complexity and value of customer data has increased by orders of magnitude. Marc Demarest, CEO of DecisionPoint Applications, argues that organisations need a powerful system that provides fast and flexible responses to analytical queries.
digital money: have banks lost the plot?
Susanne Mornan-Vaughan and Paul Smith are both consultants with Consult Hyperion, a leading UK-based IT management consultancy specialising in electronic commerce. They consider the value and progress of digital money in the marketplace, analysing the fortunes of several ventures.
e-commerce initiatives: global trade in the new millennium
Frank Abraham, Sales Executive of Bank of America Global Trade Services group in Los Angeles, outlines some of the latest undertakings in e-commerce as they relate to international trade: digital marketplaces like E-AQUI and TRADEX, as well as networks (TradeNet and CargoNet) and platforms (XML) that facilitate trade documentation. He also looks at Identrus and Bolero, and gives an overview of the way business will be done electronically - from finding trading partners, to arranging shipping and financing, to delivery and payment.
logistics in the new economy: enhancing ERP
Calleo is a financial services consultancy, IT services and e-business solutions provider, based in Switzerland, with offices in the UK, Germany and Poland. Calleo was selected by e-freight marketplace eLogistics to provide expertise in web development to enable it to launch speedy, well-crafted and robust solutions. Calleo is now actively involved in supporting the system ensuring that eLogistics safeguards all transactions. Marc Baetens, Account Manager at Calleo, explains how the consultancy has helped.
maritime e-commerce: a corner turned - part one
George Chandler, Partner at law firm Hill Rivkins & Hayden, explains the fundamentals of electronic commerce for international trade and transport. He is a member of the CMI International Subcommittee on Issues of Transport Law, the EDI Working Group, and CMI/UNCITRAL Group of Experts on Electronic Contracts of Carriage; and President of the Houston Maritime Arbitrators Association. Part two of this survey will appear in the next issue.
online letters of credit: connect to the right credit
Financial professionals need a new solution for obtaining letters of credit online. That’s not just Lukasz Cianciara's opinion; according to a comprehensive survey conducted by a leading professional association, it’s theirs. Cianciara is Founder and Co-President of LCconnect Inc. He provides an overview of some of the limitations faced by both companies and banks in executing letters of credit in today's trade environment. Additionally, he addresses how LCconnect, leveraging internet technology, attempts to streamline the current process, providing efficiencies to all LC practitioners.
regional focus: africa: the lion's turn to roar
Africanlion.com promises to bring the lucrative African commodity trading market to the world online. Rupert Sayer talks to its founders, who are initially concentrating on coffee.
