Wema Bank has gone live on Kachasi Trade Finance Software to enable the achievement of full automation of trade finance operations.

Trade finance is a phrase used to describe different strategies that are employed to make international trade easier. The market share is expected to increase by $12.20 billion from 2021 to 2026, and the market’s growth momentum will accelerate at a CAGR of 4.38 percent.

Kachasi, owned by Union Systems, is the first indigenous trade finance software application built to automate the entire lifecycle of international and domestic trade finance operations, and it is the result of over 20 years of experience implementing and customising various international trade finance software applications for banks across Africa.

Wema Bank’s journey with the software began in March 2022. As a first of its kind, Kachasi Trade Finance Software comes with intuitive design and functionalities.

“We are pleased to be joining the league of banks around the world that re using technology to transform trde finance operations,” Tajudeen Bakare, divisional Head of Operations and General Service, Wema Bank. “This project will significantly reduce turnaround time improve operational efficiency, and unlock new revenue streas for the bank. It will also improve the bank’s ability to respond quickly to regulatory policies and updates.”

Accord Financial Unites Middle Market Financing

Accord Financial Corp., one of the U.S. and Canada’s leading independent commercial finance companies (“Accord”) (TSX: ACD) announced a realignment plan to better support the organization’s continued growth among middle market businesses, uniting all U.S. commercial financing programs under one umbrella. “Middle market companies are and have been a major growth engine for the U.S. economy,” stated Simon Hitzig, President, Accord Financial. “This reorganization will allow us to better support our clients as they face both challenges and opportunities when growing and sustaining their businesses.”

                                Follow: Ngulminthang Lhanghal

Leading the U.S. Commercial team is Jim Hogan. Jim will be responsible for all Accord’s activities that address the U.S. middle market, including equipment finance, asset-based lending and factoring. “I am excited to work with such a strong team of professionals, offering customized financing to middle market companies and furthering Accord’s reputation as smart, flexible financial partners,” stated Hogan, President, U.S. Commercial. Joining Accord in January, Hogan has over 30 years of experience in asset-based lending and restructuring, including 17 years at GE Capital.

Jain (pictured), based in Singapore, and Frankfurt-based Resovac take over the role from Daniel Schmand, who earlier this year became global head of institutional cash management and head of corporate bank operations at the German lender. They will report to Stefan Hoops, head of Deutsche’s corporate bank.

The bank says the double-headed structure reflects the changes in the trade finance industry in recent years “as technology, geopolitics, the pandemic and technology have rearranged the competitive landscape together with increased levels and complexity of risk”.

Jain, who Deutsche describes as “one the bank’s most seasoned trade finance experts” has been with the bank for over two decades, most recently running trade finance and lending for Asia Pacific.

Union Systems Limited, Africa’s leading trade finance company, partners with Wema Bank Plc to automate its trade finance operations. The bank selected Union Systems’ Kachasi trade finance software over all other international trade finance software solutions due to its ability to address both the traditional international trade finance processes and the peculiar Nigerian trade finance operations. The selection of Kachasi demonstrates Union Systems‘ leadership, experience, and excellence in the provision of trade finance software solutions.

Wema Bank, the pioneer of Africa’s first fully digital bank, is no stranger to being at the forefront of introducing innovative digital solutions to its customers. Through this collaboration, the bank will join the league of banks around the world that are using technology to change the way trade financing works. This trade finance automation project will significantly reduce trade finance processing turnaround time, improve operational efficiency, and unlock new revenue streams for the bank. It will also improve the bank’s ability to respond quickly to regulatory policies and updates.

Kachasi is the first indigenous trade finance software application built to automate the entire lifecycle of international and domestic trade finance operations. Union Systems brings to this partnership over 20 years of successful development and implementation of trade finance solutions across Africa. This is a significant milestone for the company and proves its expertise in the design and development of trade finance software products.

The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) has unveiled fresh trade finance support for businesses affected by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, both in the war-ravaged country and neighbouring nations.

As the conflict approaches its fourth week, the EBRD has announced a €2bn resilience package and says various forms of financial aid will be made “rapidly available” to Ukrainian businesses.

These include payment deferrals, emergency liquidity finance, trade finance, and potentially even help for companies looking to relocate.

An EBRD spokesperson tells GTR there is no specific amount earmarked for trade finance purposes, but the lender will weigh up demand from partner banks and the “obviously the level of risk of each proposed transaction”.

They add the new trade finance lines will boost imports of fuel, medicine and other important goods, with financing disbursed through Ukrainian commercial banks who will on-lend to their clients.

The move follows a proposal by the EBRD board of directors on March 1 to suspend access to its financing and expertise by Russia and its ally, Belarus, “open-endedly”. The bank’s governors were given 30 days to vote on the proposal.

Financial Technology (Fintech) startups mainly focuses on using emerging technology in design and delivery of financial products and services with the focus on making them more accessible, affordable, and easy to use.

Year 2021 ended with record number of unicorns for Indian startups. Out of 81 unicorns that India has produced so far, 2021 alone witnessed rise of 44 unicorns and 10 of them were Fintech startups. Covid 19 spread and resulting lockdown further fueled Fintech growth.

Fintech startups across the globe mainly collaborate and co-create products/features with the existing financial institutions and leverage partner bank’s license for transforming financial services.

As per the latest reports, Tradeteq, a technology service provider for trade finance asset distribution has completed its most-talked world’s first trade finance-based non-fungible token (NFT) transaction, on Singapore-based eXchange inFinite’s (XinFin) XDC network.

This aforesaid new transaction took place with Accelerated Payments, a Dublin-headquartered invoice finance company as the asset originator. During executing the transaction, the trade finance assets were transformed into NFTs by leveraging the XDC network’s blockchain technology. This enables the institutional financial backers to purchase and sell the tokens that demonstrate the value of an off-chain asset as well as provides the token holders with the lawful entitlement.

Accelerated Payments Founder and CEO Ian Duffy said in the report, “The joint effort between XinFin, Tradeteq, and Accelerated Payments ensures a complete & transparent chain from investors to the beneficiary of funding with reliability and liquidity. This significant step highlights the ability to separate the invoice discounting industry and construct ways for facilitating access to a broader range of finance providers and beneficiaries, offering a platform that can scale globally.”

CUBE, a global RegTech company working to simplify compliance for the world’s financial institutions, has launched RegAssure, a groundbreaking product that provides automated regulatory intelligence to small and medium-sized financial institutions.

CUBE has developed RegAssure specifically to cater for agile, lean financial organisations and FinTechs looking for effective compliance without the set-up costs and lengthy implementations. RegAssure has been designed to provide instant access to meaningful, relevant regulatory information that enables those working in obedience to get the job done in a fraction of the time it normally takes.

RegAssure is designed to evolve with companies and is underpinned by a simple user interface, enabling growing financial institutions to quickly begin using and benefitting from new capabilities without the impediment of business or technical complications. The result is a highly flexible, instantly accessible regulatory alerting, inventory and analytics capability that provides fast, automated regulatory intelligence and one source of the truth that can be relied upon.

Ben Richmond, CEO and Founder of CUBE, said: “In working with the largest financial institutions across the globe, we have put our automated regulatory intelligence to the test in the most demanding environments. We wanted to take that experience and build something specifically for those that have limited budgets and resources to meet their compliance requirements. That’s what we have achieved with RegAssure, which has been founded with a single goal in mind to provide fast, automated regulatory intelligence that intuitively knows what matters to each organisation and the people within it.”