GTR News Brief Episode 15

Host Felix Thompson gives a breakdown of the major stories in trade and trade finance news this week.

Payments network Swift has unveiled a dramatic overhaul of its infrastructure, which will see it expand its focus beyond financial messaging into end-to-end transaction management services.

The Bankers Association for Finance and Trade (Baft) has released a series of guiding principles to define the essential criteria for the use and structuring of payables finance.

A new report from the African Development Bank and Afreximbank finds that rejection rates for trade finance applications for SMEs in Africa are on the rise, with bank participation in activities decreasing. 

The continent’s trade finance gap, estimated to be more than US$81bn, is also growing. 

Felix also provides a closer analysis of the UK-Japan trade agreement signed earlier this month, the first deal of its kind since Britain left the EU.

Music credit to Kevin MacLeod for his track Loopster, taken from incompetech.com. Licensed under creative commons by attribution 3.0 license. Further music credit to Sunrise Drive by South London HiFi. Licensed under creative commons Attribution 4.0 License. Music promoted by CopyrightFree.org