Transforming interoperability within trade finance
Iain MacLennan, Head of Trade & Supply Chain Finance at Finastra, and Peter Hazou, Director of Business Development at Microsoft, discuss the rapidly evolving global trade finance system. They cover the shift from static data to insight-driven systems, the use of technologies like blockchain and AI for compliance and scalability, and the importance of an agile, interoperable trade finance stack.
The interview adresses the challenges and opportunities of trade finance, a key driver of global trade, which faces market shocks, rejections, and inefficiencies, and calls for modernization and innovation. Hazou and MacLennan describe the trade finance stack as a platform that includes the whole suite of applications and business processes needed to run a trade finance business. By choosing the stack that Finastra and Microsoft provides, banks and other third parties involved in trade finance no longer need to spend time building their own trade finance systems. Emerging technologies, such as blockchain and AI, can improve trade finance by enabling faster decision making, interoperability, and automation. As a result, banks can adopt a more agile approach to trade finance that meets the changing expectations of their customers.
