Trade Finance Talks

Yesterday, 25 August, Canada announced tariffs on $27.6 billion worth of imports from the US. This came in retaliation for the new 50% tariffs being imposed on $27.6 billion of Canadian goods - in what Canadian Finance Minister François-Philippe Champagne describes as a “dollar-for-dollar, rate-for-rate” strategy.

African markets are among the fastest-growing for receivables finance, but the solution remains virtually unknown in many parts of the continent. Yet as a financing model, receivables finance, also known as factoring, lets businesses unlock cash tied up in unpaid invoices instead of waiting 30, 60, or even 90 days for payments. Through receivables finance, the supplier sells outstanding invoices to a third party - a factor - and the factor advances the majority of the invoice value, with financing linked to the underlying receivables and the creditworthiness of the debtor. The cash provided by the factor can then fund payroll, inventory, and essentially keep the wheels rolling before the buyer has completed payment.

When Russian tanks rolled into the Donbas, Sumy, Kherson and other regions of Ukraine in the early morning of 22 February 2022, the world watched in horror as the familiar story - a small state bullied into submission by a global superpower - repeated once again. Since then, the role of financial institutions both as providers of financing and pillars of the community has grown more firmly entrenched in Ukraine.

In the second episode of Future of Trade, Trade Finance Global and Standard Chartered explore why digital trade adoption continues to lag behind innovation. TFG’s Mark Abrams speaks with Samuel Mathew, Managing Director and Global Head of Documentary Trade at Standard Chartered, on the difference between digitisation and true digitalisation, the interoperability challenges holding paperless trade back, and the role of legacy infrastructure. The episode also examines the foundations needed for AI in trade finance, the growing relevance of digital assets and tokenisation, and why regulatory progress remains necessary but insufficient for digital trade to scale.

As the environmental cost of global supply chains – responsible for over 60% of global yearly emissions – becomes impossible to ignore, the EU’s Carbon Border Adjustment (CBAM) is emerging as a central tool for aligning trade with climate objectives. On January 1, 2026, CBAM will move from a reporting framework and become a real financial liability for importers: those who haven’t secured authorised CBAM declarant status will face penalties, higher costs, and operational disruption. Trade Finance Global’s (TFG) Charles Osborne spoke with Adam Hearne, CEO and Co-founder of CarbonChain, about what this transition means in practice.