Podcast with Clarissa Dann and a panel of experts discussing why the ability to distribute trade finance assets is key to liquidity. Joining us in the discussion is Cláudia Dos Santos, Jonathan Lonsdale, Dominic Capolongo, Christoph Gugelmann and Deepesh Patel.

Resurgent inflation appears firmly bedded in for now and rising energy and food prices have impacted the cost of living in both developed and emerging economies. What is this doing to trade? How are governments responding?

The new Electronic Trade Documents Act (ETDA) came into force on 20 September 2023, and this is set to accelerate trade finance’s long overdue digitalisation. How can this connect what has been a series of digital islands and how do we arrive at industry adoption? It’s not for the want of trying…

Join us this week where we talk about how fraudsters love trade and how trade finance is particularly exposed to their attentions. They take advantage of the trade industry’s reliance on document-based processes, using techniques such as fake invoices, fake or cloned bills of lading, collateral fraud, and duplicate financing to get the better of banks and their clients.

What are the tell-tale signs to look out for, and what more can be done as we digitalise trade finance to make it harder for fraudsters to penetrate daily transactions?

On this week's podcast, we explore the role of rare earth metals (REMs) and how they are essential raw inputs used to manufacture more than 200 different commercial products, as well as everyday consumer goods such as mobile phones, cameras, computer drives, floodlights and microwave filters.

The global supply chain for these rare earth metals is fragile and vulnerable to geopolitics. We've asked our guests on Trade Finance TV to take a closer look at geopolitical choke points, supply risks, and what is being done to manage this by governments, producers and financiers.

The ICC Trade Register 2022 highlighted yet again the low default rate of trade finance – with export letters of credit coming in with exposure weighted default rates low as 0.02%. We've asked our experts, James, Sean and Boris on trade’s unique properties that have helped keep default rates low and popularity rates high. Our experts in the studio have spent their careers managing trade finance risk – what are the secrets?

As Asia transitions away from fossil fuels and ramps up clean energy infrastructure, what does this mean for trade and project finance? Where are we seeing innovation in finding green alternatives?Our guests, Alex Whitworth (Wood Mackenzie) and Matthew Moodey (Deutsche Bank) discuss how Black Swan events, such as the Russia/Ukraine conflict have driven the energy security agenda all over the world.While emerging economy importers of gas have been hit by sharp price hikes, those same high prices are accelerating the development of renewable capabilities in Asia. Whitworth notes how “China is leading the pack for both wind and solar” and Moodey adds, “Outside China, Australia and Japan, pipelines are very strong for renewables, but emerging Asia markets are stuck.”However, explains Whitworth, the trajectory of renewables capability in emerging markets will not be driven by aid (at COP27 there was a discussion about developed economies helping emerging ones in their energy transition), but by sheer economics. “Solar and wind are becoming cheaper than fossil fuels – that is what’s driving the energy transition in Asia,” he adds.Tune in to hear more!

Participants

Alex Whitworth, Head of Asia Pacific Power & Renewables Research, Wood Mackenzie
Matthew Moodey, Head of Natural Resources Finance Asia, Deutsche Bank

Co-presenters

Katharine Morton, Head of Trade, Treasury and Risk, TXF Media Ltd
Clarissa Dann, Editorial Director, Deutsche Bank AG

The EU/UK Trade Cooperation Agreement (TCA) was signed in the nick of time just before Christmas 2020, but will it stand the test of time and is it fit for purpose?

Further to the Deutsche Bank flow article on this topic, Post_Brexit TCA: Fit for purpose? published on 11 January 2021, Trade Economist Rebecca Harding is joined in the “Lockdown Studio” by Deutsche Bank Research Economist Sanjay Raja and Cicero/AMO’s Executive Chair Iain Anderson.

The guests agreed the TCA was “always going to be a political agreement and not an economic one”. While it delivered on tariffs, there was no provision at this stage for services or treatment of data. But at least there was a deal.  As Anderson puts it, “The mood music of doing a deal is positive and of course it was not going to boil the ocean”.  The other complication is that Covid-19 masks wider economic effects of the deal at the moment so it’s a matter of seeing how it all works out.

As for the City of London’s status as a financial centre, this does not seem, agree the participants, to be under threat; although they note the City “is recalibrating the way it works with the rest of the world. Other area to watch are initiatives on sustainability and the momentum from the Bank of England on central bank digital currencies.

Do join us to hear more.

• Dr Rebecca Harding, CEO Coriolis Technologies
• Iain Anderson, Executive Chair, Cicero/AMO Group
• Sanjay Raja, Economist Deutsche Bank Research

• Clarissa Dann, Editorial Director, Deutsche Bank