Over the course of the last 20 years, international trade has expanded massively with goods and services traded globally now accounting for over 60% of the global gross domestic product. 

Although trade has changed significantly in the last 20 years, processes have largely remained manual, paper-intensive and complex. Digitising trade processes is not a new initiative, but the previous lack of open standards, regulations and heterogeneous systems has resulted in the creation of digital silos stifling further progress. 

Things however have started to change and trade digitisation has started to pick up momentum due to the evolution of recent technologies like AI, machine learning, open APIs and blockchain. Coupled with the recent challenges brought forth by the COVID-19 pandemic, we have seen the trade finance community adopt digitisation more readily.  

The benefits of digitising trade processes are clear; trade digitisation reduces the inherent risks of trade, reduces costs, and removes the inefficiencies of complex, paper-intensive and fragmented processes. Switching focus towards trade finance digitisation delivers countless opportunities and benefits for all trade parties. 

We at Bolero have been at the forefront of trade digitisation and innovation for more than two decades. We were the first to roll out a commercial electronic bill of lading solution that allows our clients to receive digital bills of lading from our network of more than 200 shipping carriers across the globe and pass those along to their trade counterparts.  

Bolero’s transformation journey 

With more than 20 years’ experience in trade, maritime and cloud technology, we have access to data and research that allows us to build products that bring incredible value to our customers. And as such we have cemented ourselves as a main stay in the trade finance digitisation community. 

As part of our objectives to build innovative, modern, and intuitive solutions we turned to our customers, partners, and friends in the industry for feedback to fuel our innovation. In these conversations, we were able to spot unmet needs and identified use cases that were not previously addressed by the market. We gained valuable insights from these discussions which have helped us identify improvements, add new functionalities, and create new solutions to address challenges faced by the trade community.  

The first step for our talented team of engineers was to future proof our tech stack to keep up with the latest technology trends and innovations. This gave us the foundations to provide a single point of access to all Bolero services, transform user experience, build robust bank-grade security systems, and improve connectivity with third-party systems allowing us to provide deeper and wider functionalities to our customers.  

This became a reality when we unveiled our new platform Galileo in February 2020.  Our first live module – the Open Account module is enabling exporters and importers to exchange trade documents including electronic bills of lading (eBLs) with each other in a very collaborative and simple way.  

A little more about Galileo  

Galileo is a flexible, modular, and scalable platform that has been designed to deliver future-proofed digital trade services to Banks, Corporates, Carriers and other trade eco-systems. With an enhanced user experience powered by advanced technology, it delivers unrivalled functionality and seamless integration. 

 Galileo is also capable of growing in functionality with its ability to embed best-in-class solutions from our partners as value-added services. Our partnership with Traydstream for document precheck and Mitigram for price discovery makes it even more interesting and comprehensive for end users. 

Figure 1. Our Galileo platform, connectivity and integrations are key.

Galileo Multi-Bank for Corporates; the first solution developed on our new platform. 

Galileo Multi-Bank for Corporates allows customers to send their letters of credit or guarantee transactions to banks using our web application or any third-party portal application. Client transactions are sent to banks on a secured messaging channel and Banks can receive transactions via Bolero’s web application or directly into their back-office systems. 

 Galileo Multi-Bank for Corporates solution offers: 

• A transformed digital user experience that is simple and intuitive. 
• Access to all trade transactions like Letters of Credit, Guarantees, presentations in one place 
• API based connectivity with banks and third-party applications 
• Ready connectivity and access to more than 200 carriers across the globe. Collaborative drafting of trade instruments between customers, counterparties and banks. 
• Real-time visibility of all trade transactions using dashboard, reporting, audit and traceability tools 
• Email and in-app notifications 

Replacement of user certificates with 2-factor authentication using Google authenticator or Microsoft authenticator or Bolero’s own authenticator will allow for quick onboarding of clients on Galileo.  Over the next 12 months, we hope to move all our existing customers to our Galileo Multi-Bank for Corporates solution.  

The collaborative process between our teams and customers allowed us to use that feedback to develop an innovative platform that addresses the difficulties the trade community faces. We are extremely pleased with our progress and the positive responses received from customers, partners, and prospects. The responses have driven us, even more, to make sure we continue to develop cutting-edge and innovative solutions. 

The biggest leap is yet to come 

With our new technology platform, we have built a strong foundation that allows us to continually innovate and build novel solutions for banks, carriers and corporates.  

We have solved important issues corporates have been facing with the release of our Galileo Multi-Bank for corporates solution by providing a transformed user experience and better connectivity with banks and at the same time eliminating the time spent on manual processes.  

On the other hand, banks have not been able to offer a fully digitised service to their trade customers due to the immense cost, time and the complex implementation processes required to offer a fully digitised user journey. This is a gap in the market that we believe we can fulfil.  

For some time now, this has been an area of intense interest for us at Bolero. We have been working tirelessly in close collaboration with one of the biggest financial institutions in the world to address these issues so that we can bridge this gap and enable banks to offer a fully digital trade finance experience to their clients. 

We are close to sharing our newest innovation and the biggest leap in the trade finance space and we cannot wait to tell you more about this in the coming days. 

The post Our journey with Galileo, the biggest leap in trade finance digitisation yet, pt.1 appeared first on Bolero (WiseTech Global Group).

Costs and fees can soon mount up as central visibility and control over thousands of instruments are lost in a maze of processes and proprietary systems. A corporate with international involvement may have many credit lines and thousands of guarantees open at any one time.

Keeping them updated and managing them to avoid unnecessary bank fees, costs and duplication becomes extremely difficult in the absence of a consolidated overview provided by a single platform interfacing with all required banks.

There are however many valid reasons for having multiple bank relationships.

Firstly, banks have different areas of expertise, whether in products, trading zones or particular countries and home jurisdictions, which corporates need to make use of. Secondly, having commercial relationships with several banks gives a corporate the opportunity to negotiate the optimum terms and conditions for a transaction.  Thirdly, the involvement of several banks spreads the risk and reduces premiums when financing high-value transactions.

These are the advantages – but the distinct disadvantages of dealing with banks through traditional methods are now very apparent.

For a start, each bank will have its own distinct IT system, requiring corporate customers to go through the tedious, time-consuming and potentially confusing process of logging into a different portal and going through security checks and passwords in each case.

More significantly, when there are thousands of documentary credits and guarantees, it becomes incredibly difficult for a corporate to keep on top of every instrument – to be able to see them and ensure they are updated and employed in the most cost-effective manner possible.

A large organisation, for example, may have local offices or subsidiaries that obtain their own bank guarantees, which makes it very difficult for treasuries to see and manage centrally.

It is still the case that in many corporates, spreadsheets are employed for this function to operate effectively. Yet even where organisations have their own treasury management systems, reconciliation and establishing degrees of exposure can be very problematic when there may be so many instruments behind deals worth billions of pounds. Interfacing with bank systems is fraught with difficulty and can be very manual and time-consuming.

However, corporates are increasingly consolidating their handling of all these processes and instruments on a single third-party platform, handing themselves huge gains in man-hours, visibility and importantly – substantial savings in bank fees and costs.

Vastly increased visibility of credit lines, documentary credits and guarantees on a web-based platform gives a consistent view regardless of location. The result is the more efficient use of credit lines and big savings, to a degree that can never be achieved by any other means.

It gives a treasury the chance to call down credit much earlier, potentially benefiting the organisation by 10 or 20 basis-points – a significant saving on large numbers. The clear level of visibility provided by a multi-bank platform also means existing credit lines can be utilised without all the fees and processes required to set up new ones.

Full or even partial integration with back-office systems, seamless communication with panel banks and an effective system of alerts, all make the single multi-bank platform the future for hard-pressed treasuries toiling to improve cash-flow management and the efficient deployment of working capital.

As the global banking network expands, the treasury of any successful corporate involved in major trade transactions will have to shift to a single, multi-bank platform built and supplied by a third-party provider with an established reputation for total reliability, security and efficiency in international trade finance and banking.

The advantages in a globalised world of round-the-clock operations are simply going to be too obvious to ignore.

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In doing so, Societe Generale has tackled one of the biggest inefficiencies still faced in trade finance – paper-based documentation. At the centre of these transactions are Letters of Credit (“LC”) – a bank undertaking to pay the beneficiary (exporter) for a trade transaction subject to presentation of required documents that comply with the terms and conditions of the LC.

When paper documents are used, they must physically move from the beneficiary to its bank, and from that bank to the issuing bank, in a cross-border transaction. The physical transfer of paper from one party to the next party is time-consuming, and all too often the cargo shipped arrives at the port of destination before the documents arrive at the issuing bank, potentially leading to demurrage penalties and a significant delay in release of the goods to the importer.

By moving from paper to electronic records, the long transit times required for couriering are replaced by the quick electronic, push-button transmission of the documents.  This speed of transfer addressed many of the challenges and risks faced by one of India’s largest exporters.

The use of electronic presentations on Bolero’s secure platform is not only more efficient in terms of speed but eliminates the risk of paper documents being lost in transit and mitigates the risk of fraud associated with modified or fake paper documents.

For this trade finance transaction, Societe Generale India used 100 per cent electronic presentation of their export Letters of Credit in support of a large shipment of petrochemicals from India to China. The electronic records included electronic Bills of Lading (“eBL”), issued and transferred using Bolero’s ePresentation solution. This radically shortened the payment settlement time due to elimination of all delays associated with paper documentation.

Antoine Castel, Chief Executive Officer, Societe Generale India described the significance of the transactions. “Societe Generale is adapting to innovative technology solutions to help clients bridge the transit time and provide them with speedier settlement in cross border trade. It is a great step forward in trade for one of our key clients, as it is making trade safer, smarter and faster,” he said.

Almost as significantly, this was also an early use of eUCP Version 2.0 (electronic supplement to the Uniform Rules and Practices for Documentary Credits). These are new rules on electronic Letters of Credit governing banks and trade finance organisations, that became effective in July 2019, published by the International Chamber of Commerce, Paris.

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For the deal in question, HSBC India and ING Bank Brussels successfully executed a blockchain-enabled Letter of Credit (LC) transaction between the India-based conglomerate Reliance Industries (RIL) and Tricon Energy USA, a global leader in the distribution of petrochemical derivatives. The end-to-end transaction was completed on R3’s Corda blockchain platform, slashing the amount of time when compared with conventional paper-based processes. It involved a single shared application, rather than requiring multiple isolated digital systems across various counterparties, located around the globe.

This is an important first for the industry, as the Corda platform integrates Bolero’s eBL solution for the issuance and management of eBLs. This allowed title to the goods in this transaction to transfer digitally from Reliance (the seller) to Tricon (the buyer), with full visibility to the banks, enabling the underlying trade to be fully digitised.

The transaction is one of the first fruits of Bolero’s partnership with R3, the enterprise software firm with a goal to deliver new, easy ways of connecting supply chain participants, simplifying and advancing digitisation trade documents.

In its partnership with R3, Bolero is extending the reach of its eBL Title Registry based solution across the supply chain by developing an oracle on Corda, which enables carriers to connect with corporates and other supply chain participants. Relevant parties will be able to endorse and verify an eBL’s title without needing to revert to paper.

The success of this RIL/Tricon Energy transaction is a major step forward as we continue to focus on industry collaboration and interoperability right across global trade. This is allowing us to fulfil our mission to make trade safer, smarter and faster , delivering major efficiency gains for all our banking, corporate and supply chain customers.

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Managing credit lines with multiple banks involves huge amounts of time for corporate treasuries securing and monitoring finance for trade transactions.

They spend long hours accessing different portals with varying user interfaces and functions to apply for and manage the same trade finance products. Assuming that is, that there are even portals to access. Applying for and monitoring letters of credit and bank guarantees is very difficult when logging in and out of different portals. Despite the increase in digitisation, some banks are decommissioning the tools that facilitate bank guarantee management, complicating matters further.

Consequently, large importers and exporters find managing hundreds or thousands of letters of credit (LCs), standby LCs or bank guarantees every year to be a huge challenge. With the advent of the Covid-19 pandemic these issues have multiplied, especially as paper trade documentation continues to drag down efficiency.

Benefit from banks’ advancing trade digitisation

As a starting point in their journey to much greater efficiency, treasuries need to drop the use of paper in transactions. The newly-published 2020 International Chamber of Commerce Global Survey On Trade Finance shows that despite increasing trade digitisation among banks, many corporates still rely on slow and cumbersome paper-based processes. Yet just 15 per cent of the banks surveyed said LCs must be in paper form in the jurisdictions in which they operate.

But attitudes are changing; the Covid-19 restrictions on physical movement demonstrated the financial supply chain’s vulnerability when paper letters of credit or guarantees are held up by the same restrictions as cargoes, even though the documents travel separately from the shipment.

A comprehensive solution for credit lines

To remove all these hurdles to efficiency, corporates need a more far-reaching digital solution that provides a single, consolidated view of their credit lines, letters of credit and guarantees for every bank they deal with.

Treasuries need to shift to an online multi-banking trade finance solution such as Bolero’s advanced Galileo platform in order to avail themselves of the security and efficiency that flows from the digitisation of letters of credit and guarantees.

Galileo is packed with user-friendly functionality and has been designed to deliver immensely greater visibility and control without any compromise on security. From a single interface, treasury departments can manage and edit letters of credit, bank guarantees and electronic presentations, as well as benefit from the full use of Bolero’s signature electronic bills of lading.

For large, multi-national corporates with subsidiaries or treasuries distributed in different global regions, Galileo also provides greater visibility across borders and organisational boundaries, providing efficiencies at scale in use of credit lines and working capital.

Increasing visibility and control

The case for linking into the growing digital banking eco-system through a single interface is becoming more convincing by the day. As the world continues to endure the disruption to normal operations caused by the pandemic, the advantages of an easily accessible, single, secure interface with multiple banks become obvious.

A cloud-based platform such as Galileo underpins business continuity, providing fast and secure access to LCs, guarantees, ensuring their continued supervision. This is highly advantageous when remote working is increasing substantially, both as a response to Covid-19 and as a business strategy. Tracking, audit trails and encryption built into Galileo also reduce the opportunities for fraud that are especially a problem when paper documents are employed.

The adoption of multi-banking trade finance solutions will allow corporates to manage and optimise their LCs, guarantees and credit line relationships with banks with an ease and efficiency that has previously been impossible and is now very necessary.

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The pandemic has certainly added to the pressures faced by treasury departments responsible for trade finance at major corporates. As well as fulfilling board-level expectations that they will drive change and provide more strategic insight, treasurers involved in global trade must now cope with an economic downturn and the constant threat of fraud.

Many treasurers know that this will be very difficult if they continue to use manual methods for complex workflows involving multiple systems. This is especially true in the management and optimisation of credit lines and important trade finance instruments such as letters of credit (LCs) or guarantees.

In December, before Covid-19 erupted, an HSBC survey found many corporate treasurers already felt ill-equipped to meet the demands placed on them. Now the pressures are even more intense.

Continued use of paper documentation for trade finance is hard to justify when the pandemic is giving a push to trade digitisation and multi-banking trade finance solutions such as Bolero’s Galileo platform offer transformative advantages in terms of efficiency, control and visibility.

Galileo will consolidate all a corporate’s credit lines, LCs and guarantees onto one interface so treasuries no longer have to manually access multiple bank portals (assuming their banks have them). It will also reduce the risk of involvement in fraud and forgery, which is such a significant problem it has led some banks to withdraw from involvement in commodity trade finance.

The oil trader Hin Leong in Singapore is, for example, alleged in court documents to have committed a major fraud using 58 import letters of credit that were not supported by any underlying transaction, along with forged bank statements, bills of lading, sales contracts and invoices.

By removing paper and vastly increasing visibility, Galileo would very substantially reduce the risk of being caught up in frauds of this kind. Paper documents are vulnerable – they can be forged when out of sight while couriered around the globe. Once a document is digitised on Galileo, however, forgery becomes extremely difficult because of encryption and audit trails. The electronic document remains completely visible at all time, but only to those engaged in the transaction, with the legitimate holder the sole party able to amend it.

Increasing the efficiency of each trade transaction through digitisation

The elimination of paper under LCs also reduces the chances of delays or failed transactions when, for example, deadlines for physical presentation to a prescribed location are not met. As treasury departments know well, LCs are notoriously complex instruments requiring close attention to detail and strict compliance with the rules governing their use. Thankfully, compliance-checking can also be automated in Galileo, which increases accuracy as well as saving time.

With Galileo, treasuries no longer log in and out of different bank portals to monitor what may be hundreds or thousands of LCs and guarantees each year. Through a single, interface that has been designed for ease-of-use and is packed with functionality, treasuries gain quick and easy access to all their banks, along with far greater control of individual LCs. This transforms how treasuries manage their relationships with their credit-providers and ensures they maintain important relationships with their preferred banks.

From the same platform, they can manage and edit all trade finance documentation and electronic presentations, as well as open account transactions and electronic bills of lading. Tracking and reporting is accomplished with a few mouse-clicks, while communications with banks remain encrypted and secure. This is a major advantage when remote working is on the increase in so many areas of the globe.

As the world changes, but the pressures intensify, there is an urgent need for treasuries to grasp digitisation for the optimisation of their trade finance operations. It makes the adoption of a multi-banking trade finance solution such as Galileo, the best move they can make.

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London, 18th Aug, 2020 –Bolero International, the leading global trade finance digitisation expert with more than two decades of experience, is experiencing substantial growth as banks, corporates and shipping liners grasp the advantages of paperless transactions during the Covid-19 disruption.

Since the successful launch of Bolero’s cutting-edge Galileo platform in February, the company has processed thousands of electronic bills of lading (eBLs).

Between January and April, 2020, the volume of eBLs presented digitally on Bolero rose by 46%, compared with the same period in 2019. Bolero’s range of integrated solutions for carriers designed alongside the world’s largest container lines has seen a 380% year-on-year increase in the volume of eBLs transacted. This very significant trend set to continue as more organisations realise digitisation has become a vital necessity in international trade. Galileo’s accelerating roll-out will meet this demand, providing advanced functionality that future-proofs digital trade services for banks, corporates, carriers and other eco-systems.

Bolero is accelerating shipments and time-to-payment, slashing the time it takes to complete a trade transaction. For eBLs, the average time from creation to available for surrender is now two days and four hours, compared with the several days, weeks or whole month required for conventional, paper bills of lading to reach their destinations. For eBLs in the letter of credit (LC) workflow, the average number of days from the point of creation to available for surrender is six days and one hour.

The lowest time to-date for an open account transaction on the Bolero platform is one minute 25 seconds, while for a full end-to-end presentation under an LC, the current record from January to April is one day, two hours and 30 minutes. All the data and statistics provided are derived strictly from live transactions and do not include any pilots or tests.

These rapid transaction times expose the significant disadvantages of paper documents, which are susceptible to forgery, are often delayed or lost in transit and cannot be couriered when movement restrictions are imposed. If bills of lading are unavailable and cargoes must remain in port, significant demurrage penalties are incurred or costly letters of indemnity are required. This in turn can generate high admin costs and lower team productivity.

Andrew Raymond, CEO, Bolero said: “The pandemic has shown that adoption of cutting-edge digitisation to remove paper and streamline trade processes is now a no-brainer. Despite very tough conditions during the pandemic, corporates, banks and carriers have achieved major efficiencies and opened up new opportunities using the advanced connectivity, open interfaces and intuitive design of our new Galileo platform.

“Having begun its roll-out we are now preparing to announce some significant new partnerships that will extend the range and scale of our services, enabling our customers to offer more to their customers. We are welcoming an even bigger trade finance community to digitisation.”

One of the most significant of these new partnerships was revealed this month (August) when Bolero announced its partnership with global trade finance technology provider TradeIX, to bring Bolero’s eBL and e-document/ePresentation solutions to the Marco Polo blockchain Network.  The partnership between Bolero and the Marco Polo Network will ultimately provide fully-integrated trade settlement processes and allow corporates and banks to increase the capacity and velocity of their trade transactions while facilitating rapid decision-making.

“The Covid-19 crisis has shown the vulnerability of paper-related processes in cross-border trade,” said Raymond. “We expect demand for digitisation to rise rapidly throughout the second half of FY2020 – a trend which Bolero is perfectly placed to meet.”

For more information, please contact:

Joanna Elliott

The Whiteoaks Consultancy

Tel: + 44 (0) 1252 727313

joannae@whiteoaks.co.uk

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London, 28th May, 2020 – Caixa Geral de Depósitos (CGD), Portugal’s leading bank, and Mibepa, an expanding Portuguese importer of raw materials for the plastics industry, have used Bolero’s trade digitisation platform to accelerate a major shipment of polythene from India.

Bolero’s end-to-end digital presentation enabled the parties to achieve faster completion of the transaction by accelerating document flows despite all difficulties caused by the current coronavirus pandemic, including restrictions on movement of paper trade documents.

The transaction is a double-first for Bolero International, since this was the first time either Portuguese company has used the paperless Bolero trade finance digitisation platform. It also marks Bolero’s entry into the Portuguese financial eco-system as part of its continuing global growth.

As a fully end-to-end electronic presentation (ePresentation) including the Bolero eBL (electronic bill of lading), all parties to this transaction were connected to the Bolero trade digitisation platform. Mibepa was the customer and applicant, with CGD acting as the first-ever Portuguese ePresentation receiving bank. The shipment was conveyed by one of the world’s largest container logistics companies. The letter of credit for the transaction was issued under eUCP and all documents required under this letter of credit, including the bill of lading, were presented electronically using the Bolero trade digitisation platform, supported by the unique Bolero legal rulebook.

Armando Santos, Head of Corporate Banking Marketing at CGD: “The Bolero trade digitisation platform made this first transaction fast and simple, overcoming all the disruption caused by the coronavirus pandemic. We use digital technology that helps our customers achieve significant efficiencies. We are very pleased to become Bolero subscribers and expect more of our customers to embrace Bolero and the benefits of trade document digitisation.”

Paulo Dinis, CEO at Mibepa: “Achieving fast turnaround in this transaction despite the coronavirus was a big advantage for us as an expanding business with international relationships. Bolero’s trade digitisation solution met all our expectations, enabling us to avoid any problems caused by the pandemic. I’m sure this is set to be the first of more such transactions.”

Adam Kasraoui, Bolero: “Great to see a major bank like CGD expand its digital transformation to trade and shipping documentation including the electronic Bill of Lading. We are continually committed to facilitating the adoption of our technology that allows importers and exporters to securely exchange documentation with their trade ecosystem.”

For more information, please contact:

Joanna Elliott

The Whiteoaks Consultancy

Tel: + 44 (0) 1252 727313

joannae@whiteoaks.co.uk

The post Bolero opens up Portugal with first use of its electronic trade digitisation platform by bank and corporate in the country appeared first on Bolero (WiseTech Global Group).

London, 21st May, 2020 – Cargill Australia, a major provider of grain, oilseeds and other agricultural commodities, used the advanced functionality and speed of the new Bolero International Galileo trade finance platform to accelerate a canola oil shipment to China, meeting a tight deadline despite the current coronavirus difficulties.

Transferring two electronic bills of lading (eBLs) on Galileo, Cargill Australia completed the transaction in two days, with ePresentation sent from Australia on 27^th April, and the eBLs surrendered on 30^th April, before the start of the May Day holidays in China on 1^st May.

Loading in Australia took place between 12^th and 15^th April and ePresentation was achieved before the vessel docked at Nantong. The shipment comprised two parcels of canola oil loaded in, respectively, Newcastle and Melbourne, Australia.

“The enhanced speed and operational simplicity of Galileo gave us major advantages when we wanted to hit a tight deadline despite the disruption to normal trade processes caused by the coronavirus pandemic,” said David Werner, Trade Execution Manager, Cargill Australia. “Galileo enabled us to complete this transaction before the Chinese holiday without compromising on security or having to cut corners on efficiency.”

Launched in February this year, Bolero’s new Galileo trade finance platform is designed to future-proof digital trade services for corporates, carriers, banks and other eco-systems. With an enhanced user experience, the new platform delivers greater functionality and seamless integration with banks and other third-party systems, providing end-to-end visibility to corporate clients and banks.

Andrew Raymond, CEO of, Bolero said: “We’re thrilled that Cargill Australia has shown how our new Galileo trade finance platform makes export transactions safer, smarter and faster, no matter how demanding the circumstances. What Cargill Australia achieved would never have been possible with paper bills of lading. The speed and simplicity of digital presentation overcame all the problems generated by the pandemic, with bank branches shut, staff in short supply and social distancing measures in force.

“With Galileo we have the platform to make trade digitisation simpler and easier to deploy, providing banks, corporates and carriers with a new, highly connected, digital eco-system. Paper bills of lading should be consigned to history.”

The Galileo trade finance platform provides corporate and bank users with a new look and feel as well as expanded functionality. Its cutting-edge design provides a more intuitive, more secure, end-to-end user experience. Via a single log-in, users manage all trade services in one place with a consolidated view of all transactions for faster, more informed decisions that optimise cash-flow and working capital.

Galileo provides a single point of access so that users can create, edit and manage letters of credit, electronic presentations and guarantees, as well as open account transactions and electronic bills of lading. Bolero is also introducing value-added services in areas such as compliance and e-certificates of origin. In combination with other market leading solutions, Galileo can provide a one-stop-shop for Bolero clients.

Behind this is a flexible, modular and scalable platform, with the aim to provide interoperability through a new API infrastructure. Galileo integrates with back-office, treasury, ERP, and blockchain-based eco-systems. Available now, it will replace the current Bolero platform and will deliver significant enhancements to Bolero’s existing trade applications and network.

For more information, please contact:

Joanna Elliott

The Whiteoaks Consultancy

Tel: + 44 (0) 1252 727313

joannae@whiteoaks.co.uk

The post Cargill Australia uses new Bolero Galileo trade finance platform to speed up China canola oil transaction despite coronavirus disruption appeared first on Bolero (WiseTech Global Group).

From design to launch – Galileo made for an exciting first 12 months as CEO

I’m happy to report it’s been a year of real progress since I took the helm as CEO of Bolero.

The high-point, by a nautical mile, remains the successful launch in February of Galileo, our new digital trade platform. We designed it to solve some of the key challenges faced by our customers – banks, corporates and carriers – and all the early signs are that we succeeded.

The positive responses to Galileo are a tribute to the skill of the staff who worked on it, led by Anchal Tiwari, our head of product management who joined us in July. We have designed Galileo to keep the customer experience central, facilitating seamless, interactive digital conversations. As things stand, it is the only digital platform that enables the convergence of physical and financial supply chain by incorporating multi-banking capability with Electronic Bills of Lading flows.

Our corporate clients already tell us they love accessing all our services through the single user interface we designed. They get end-to-end visibility of their transactions and the ability to connect with their counterparties and multiple banks.

So we have every reason to be proud of our new platform. Galileo is making a real difference, delivering genuine gains in efficiency and opening up new opportunities for our clients.

But, of course, it’s not a case of “Job done”. When I took over as CEO, I promised that we would really listen to and respond to our clients’ feedback. This is exactly what we are continuing to do. Bolero will lead with product innovation to enable full digital flows.

As we move forward, this will be delivered in different ways. We will be shifting from the traditional fintech approach of building everything ourselves to a more collaborative strategy. This means the value-added services we built into Galileo will expand to include best-in-class functionality offered by our partners working in adjacent areas. This is an exciting direction for us to travel in, and I look forward to delivering some great new features for our customers. Anchal will certainly be in the driving seat for much of this.

I can’t review my first 12 months however, without addressing the Covid-19 crisis, which, for me, is sadly reminiscent of the SARS outbreak I witnessed in Singapore.  The human and economic toll is staggering and we are fortunate that the Bolero team (and families) are well and still working productively.

Clearly this crisis has brought home the challenges of remote working and intermittent courier services. Secure, encrypted, digital versions of documents can instantly cross borders and quarantine barriers where paper equivalents may be held up for months. Dealing with the distribution and processing of stacks of paper documents required at a bank branch (if it is open) or by customs and the ports has always been a burden, but now with social distancing and working-from-home regimes in place, this has broken down completely. The answer and Bolero’s reason for being, is to provide for digitisation of documents and secure electronic communication between parties at the speed of the internet.

Nobody, however, can really predict when this current crisis will end or how it will affect individual businesses. We know it’s an extremely worrying time for many companies. At Bolero we are in the fortunate position of being well-resourced and fully equipped to be a significant force in what is likely to be a very changed market when Covid-19 restrictions are lifted. The appetite for trade digitisation is only likely to grow and we have the solutions to meet it. I’m confident that whatever the shape of international trade after the crisis, the next 12 months will see significant progress for Bolero and for our customers.

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