The Board of Directors of the African Development Bank Group (www.AfDB.org) has approved a $50 million Trade Finance Unfunded Risk Participation Agreement (RPA) facility between the African Development Bank and Standard Chartered Bank. The agreement is expected to boost intra-Africa trade, promote regional integration, and contribute to the reduction of

Waldo de Vleeschauwer, co-founder and former managing director of Africa Merchant Capital’s trade finance business, has launched Artis Finance, a London-headquartered alternative finance provider. Artis is founded against a backdrop of growing market and regulatory pressure on traditional bank lenders, which de Vleeschauwer says has made it more difficult for

Bolero International, a provider of trade finance digitisation solutions, has entered into a partnership with blockchain platform dltledgers, adding its electronic bill of lading (eBL) solution to dltledgers’ offering. Built on Hyperledger Fabric, the Singapore-based dltledgers platform focuses on cross-border commodity trade and trade finance. It enables trading companies to

In a new statement, development banks have pledged to reorientate their trade finance activities to help achieve the UN’s sustainable development goals (SDGs). However, they have avoided hard transition targets for fossil fuel financing, and some institutions, notably those in Asia, chose not to commit at all. The declaration, signed

This report is the third in the “Trade Finance in Africa” research series. It uses a standardized survey of commercial banks to provide a comprehensive study of the trade finance landscape in Africa for the nine years leading up to 2019. The aim is to provide data that set a

In a world where innovation is revered, it can be easy to forget the value of tried and tested tools. When Covid-19 revealed itself as a global pandemic, CDC turned to one of the oldest forms of international finance to support financial stability with systemic liquidity: Trade Finance. This age-old