2nd August 2018 – Trade finance profits around the world are squeezed by costs of operations, fraud prevention, and especially compliance.
Although trade finance is part of a bank’s core business, the high number of players in the market reduces the added value, and competition is based on price. Aite Group’s newest report, How Banks Are Improving Trade Finance Operations, identifies a typical bank’s back-office trade operations cost structure and assesses what strategies major international banks are adopting to reduce operational cost elements.
“Digitization is not always possible, because financial institutions are limited by bilateral agreements with other banks to get digital data,” explains Enrico Camerinelli, senior analyst at Aite Group. “If paper is received, it must be processed. Counterparts need to collaborate actively to make progress toward full digital data exchange,” he adds.
This new Aite Group report investigates how much relationship managers are overburdened by administrative duties and how much time they could save to focus, instead, on value-added activities. For this report, Aite Group collected data from informal conversations between March and May 2018 with international bank trade finance executives.
To request a press copy of this report or to speak with Enrico Camerinelli about this topic, please contact us at pr@aitegroup.com
