During the early days of the pandemic when financial uncertainty was thick in the air and companies faced a liquidity crunch, several banks rose to the challenge by providing solutions for their trade finance customers who were reliant on capital to get the goods in their supply chains moving.

While some banks offered flexible terms to companies in need of trade financing, others relied on upgrading technological processes and being able, for example, to accept digitalized trade documents. This development was particularly important in developing markets like India where trade documentation traditionally has been heavily paper-based. Other banks used the difficult situation to deploy optical character recognition technology to digitalize documents.

The board of editors of The Asset reviewed a number of interesting bespoke trading finance solutions by banks from across Asia-Pacific that went above and beyond the basics required by clients last year.

Some examples include a Malaysian ringgit letter-of-credit cross-receipt convertible from renminbi that bypasses the usage of the US dollar. Others involved multi-recourse medium-tenor financing that offers flexibility and efficiency for certain companies.

Risk management processes were also tested during the course of the pandemic in 2020, with banks continuing to offer several foreign-exchange hedging solutions to help companies reduce their financing costs. Several examples presented to the board of editors include a customized embedded cross-currency swap for China-based clients and the usage of technology platforms to secure competitive rates for companies.

To see the list of the Best Trade Finance, Working Capital and Risk Management Solutions Award winners, click here.

Over the last few weeks, The Asset has also been revealing winners of The Triple A Treasury, Trade, Sustainable Supply Chain and Risk Management Awards 2021, with a virtual awards ceremony set to take place on June 17, 2021.

To learn more about these awards, click here.

For more information about receiving the awards, contact [email protected].