Recent policies of market withdrawal and de-risking by global from key markets in challenging jurisdictions coupled with the growing burden of regulatory compliance have left smaller corporate buyers restricted and bypassed by major financial institutions.
Euro Exim Bank, as specialists in trade finance, saw a market opportunity here – servicing corporates and SME’s with a focus on instruments designed to facilitate cost-effective and efficient global trade, working exclusively with buyers across the globe. The company’s collateral requirements address the issue of limited cash flow for smaller buyers, with appropriate safeguards and security that permit buyers to compete with international transactions where they were restricted in the past. It assists clients in providing appropriate collateral requirements and looking at each trade on a case-by-case basis, with unique relationships, enabling and facilitating trade where possible.
This trend is inevitably driven by the enablement of AI, DLT and blockchain technology, safely and rapidly transporting immutable and transparent details throughout the trade life-cycle.
Euro Exim Bank’s challenging journey over the past five years in terms of jurisdictions and ever mindful of sanctioned products, countries, PEPs and compliance, has allowed it to become expert and trusted in its field and now serves tier 2 and 3 clients where traditional trade institutions no longer provide the level of service which make doing business and competing internationally viable.
Serving clients in over 100 countries, Euro Exim Bank has noticed common barriers such as trade bureaucracy, lack of access to capital, inability to complete through size, high shipping costs, lack of access to cross border e-commerce markets, infrastructure issues, corruption and trust, and slow customer payments, which restrict trade for SME’s and often larger corporates in international markets.
“2020 is expected to be a big year for further application of technological innovation in trade finance. As Free Trade Agreements (FTA’s) ease movement of goods and oil the wheels of commerce, coalitions are forming to provide faster and more appropriate trade finance services to meet not only the logistics but the financial needs of producers, customers and shippers,” says Kaushik Punjani, Director, Euro Exim Bank.
To support local business in local currency Euro Exim Bank worked with a supermarket group in Kenya needed to pay suppliers in other countries in Africa and across the globe, but did not wish to continually buy USD or other fluctuating currencies from a local bank. This affects cash flow and access to liquidity where their order size can be in the tens of thousands. Euro Exim Bank’s RippleNet solution helped the client with immediate payments in local currency through xCurrent, and further access to unlimited liquidity using the XRP digital asset with certainty and immutability of transfer and settlement.
As a regulated financial institution, the company constantly reviews its business models and is being increasingly driven by compliance requirements along with faster, secure, and guaranteed processes from trade inception to its settlement.
“This trend is inevitably driven by the enablement of AI, DLT and blockchain technology, safely and rapidly transporting immutable and transparent details throughout the trade life-cycle. IDC predicts AI spend to reach $35.8 billion in 2019 and open banking, machine learning cognitive and artificial intelligence systems expected to reach $77.6 billion in 2022, more than three times the $24 billion forecast for 2018,” adds Kaushik. The use cases for the application of DLT, blockchain, AI and real-time compliance are known, as complex transactions traversing the globe with multiple parties needing golden records, trust and visibility on each stage of a transaction and assurance of each stage of the lifecycle of the trade. Euro Exim Bank seeks out to run proofs of concept and if needed, it integrates new technologies into the processes. This has resulted in faster, more seamless, paperless customer and internal processing experience.
In addition to the company’s stance on working with clients dealing in goods of ethical origin, Euro Exim Bank aims to reduce carbon emissions and footprint. As an international bank with representation in St Lucia, India, Far East, Middle East and the UK, its management was keen to demonstrate its commitment to good causes and to make a difference for underprivileged, disabled and disadvantaged communities across the globe and the environment. Euro Exim Bank has a strong CSR policy where it regularly organizes fundraising supporting international charities.
The company has its Head Office in St. Lucia and a representative office in London and is globally spreading its market. It has recently extended operations through agents and partners in Zambia, India, Singapore and Dubai, and looks to open new representative offices in the near future. With Africa being the fastest emerging market for trade, Euro Exim Bank has uniquely positioned itself to serve the importers across the continent.
