SWIFT and ICC collaborate to drive sustainability in trade finance

SWIFT has announced that its KYC Registry will become the first global utility to integrate the International Chamber of Commerce’s (ICC) sustainable trade finance guidelines, in a move designed to make it easier for financial institutions to identify environmental, social and governance (ESG) risks in their supply chains.

By integrating the ICC’s ‘Sustainable Trade Criteria: Customer Due Diligence Guidelines’ into SWIFT’s KYC Registry, which has more than 6,000 users, financial institutions will benefit from enhanced transparency and will be able to assess the sustainability of their customers’ trade business more accurately.

Corporates with multiple banking partners will no longer have to provide ESG information in differing formats through bilateral exchanges, which is costly, time-consuming and inefficient. Instead, the inclusion of the ICC’s guidelines on SWIFT’s KYC Registry provides an industry standard that means corporates will only need to complete and update a single form that they can then share with their banking partners.

"Never before have environmental and sustainability practices had a more significant bearing on the financial decisions made by consumers, investors, corporates and financial institutions alike," said Bart Claeys, head of Data and Analytics Products Strategy at SWIFT. "This has led to a huge increase in demand for ESG due diligence which has, due to a lack of standardisation, been difficult to provide. By integrating the ICC’s Sustainable Trade Finance Guidelines into our KYC Registry, SWIFT has made it much easier, promoting transparency and helping to drive sustainability in trade finance."

“The integration of the ICC Sustainable Trade Finance Guidelines into SWIFT’s KYC Registry is a great show of progress towards embedding sustainability in trade finance transactions," commented Andrew Wilson, permanent observer to the United Nations at ICC. "We are delighted to have been able to partner with SWIFT to mainstream ESG considerations into customer due diligence processes. Enabling alignment of financing with global sustainability objectives is a top-order priority for ICC - not least in light of lessons learned from the COVID-19 crisis."

 

HighRadius and Sage partner on end-to-end accounts receivable automation

HighRadius has announced a new partnership with Sage. As part of the agreement, HighRadius has integrated RadiusOne A/R Suite with the Sage Intacct cloud financial management system and made it available in the Sage Intacct Marketplace.

RadiusOne A/R aims to bring the power of enterprise-leading AI-powered solutions to midsized businesses. The solution offers apps for e-invoicing and collections, cash reconciliation, and credit risk, which aim to help mid-sized businesses leverage accounts receivable automation technology to overcome their biggest challenges in working capital optimisation.

"RadiusOne A/R Suite is built to automate clerical A/R processes for mid-sized businesses and reduce the friction for supplier A/R teams to digitally collaborate with their buyers and A/P teams,” said Sayid Shabeer, chief product officer at HighRadius. “This partnership allows Sage Intacct customers to unleash their full potential by integrating with market-leading accounts receivable automation solutions from HighRadius."

"The A/R process for many midsize companies can be tedious, manual, and often very time consuming,” added Melody Williams, head of Business Development for Sage Intacct. “HighRadius shares our goal of streamlining and automating financial processes for our customers. This integrated solution will help our joint customers reduce errors and free their finance team to do more value-added tasks to help grow the business."

 

Cross-border payments in focus for Triterras and Western Union Business Solutions

Triterras, a trade finance fintech, has announced a partnership with Western Union Business Solutions to provide cross-border payments services between traders and lenders on its Kratos platform.

Under this partnership, Western Union Business Solutions’ will offer Kratos users access to technology for the movement of global funds, and expertise in currency risk management. As a provider of global payments technology Western Union Business Solutions is a complement to Triterras and its blockchain-enabled Kratos platform.

"This strategic partnership provides us with an opportunity to reduce our client’s transaction cycle times which will further reduce the borrowing costs of our traders on the Kratos platform,” said Srinivas Koneru, founder, executive chairman and CEO of Triterras. “This partnership is consistent with our overall strategy to continually enhance the value proposition of our Kratos platform to its community of users. The ease of cross-border payments will help make Kratos an even more transformative digital marketplace for trade and trade finance."