For more than 2 decades, Bolero has been at the forefront of Trade digitisation. We have been working with largest corporate clients, banks, and shipping companies to digitise their trade processes and identify use cases which were not previously addressed by the market. We were the first to pioneer the commercial usage of the electronic Bill of Lading and over the years we have built up immense knowledge in the trade finance space and we are fortunate to have access to valuable data and research that allows us to build incredible products that bring real value to our customers.

Last year we introduced Galileo, our new technology platform that addresses the new challenges of digital trade in a fast-moving landscape of technological innovation, and customer expectations. With Galileo, we have built a strong foundation that allows us to continually innovate and build novel solutions for banks, carriers, and corporates.

More recently, we launched our new Galileo Multi-Bank for Corporates solution built our new technology platform. With this new solution, we have created a truly open trade ecosystem that enables the convergence of physical and financial supply chain by incorporating multi-banking capability with the electronic bill of lading (eBL) solution that we pioneered.

You can read more about our work so far here.

And this year we are making the biggest leap in trade finance.

The next frontier of digital trade finance; Introducing Galileo TPaaS for Banks

Corporates globally are looking to digitise their trade processes to save time, increase visibility of their transactions, eliminate operational and courier costs, and reduce risks associated with manual processes.

Banks on the other hand have been under significant pressure to provide new and improved digital services to their corporate customers who are pushing for a fully digital experience.

We introduce the world’s first white-labelled trade finance portal-as a-service for Banks; Galileo TPaaS for Banks.

Galileo TPaaS for Banks is the fastest and most cost-effective way for banks to digitise customer experience for their trade finance clients and comes fully branded with the bank’s colour palette and logos. Built on modern technology, it delivers an enhanced user experience, unrivalled functionality, and a broad suite of connectivity options for banks.

Galileo TPaaS for Banks offers a transformed user experience that is simple, intuitive, and designed to give corporate customers greater autonomy in the management of their trade transactions. It comes with market-leading features for trade finance products like Letters of credit, Guarantees/Standby LCs, document presentations under LC with more products in the pipeline.

Galileo TPaaS for Banks comes with:

• Support for all operations under LCs and Guarantees such as issuance, amendment, advising, confirmation, extend or pay, claim etc.
• Collaborative drafting of guarantees between all clients and banks.
• Presentation of documents under LCs and open account.
• Management of electronic Bill of Lading (eBL) lifecycle.
• In-built cloud storage and transmission of documents.
• Complete visibility of trade transactions and history via analytics and reports.
• Ready connectivity with over 200 carriers for getting eBLs.

Trade portal as-a-service 

Galileo TPaaS for Banks is available on-demand as a fully managed service on our secure cloud.

This allows Banks to have an accelerated time to market, reduce the huge costs associated with building a bespoke portal but allow for great flexibility. The bank does not require any infrastructural changes and no requirements for separate deployment.

The commercial model is based on a simple recurring subscription fee.

With Galileo TPaaS for Banks, we can now offer a fully managed trade portal to the bank – as a service on the cloud – and banks can start using the service immediately and onboard their clients.

The bank not only receives the appropriate scaling for their customers but also cutting-edge technology with our future-proof Galileo platform, highly skilled resources, constant support and updates. The hassle of maintaining the solution is eliminated entirely.

Galileo TPaaS is designed for a quick start setup

 With no integrations required to start, Galileo TPaaS for Banks at its core facilitates an accelerated time to market allowing you to get up and running in a matter of days.

Banks can choose the option suitable for them to allow for a quick start. As such, there are two available methods:

1. Direct user access: this method allows bank users to receive and/or respond to client transaction requests using the Galileo bank user interface. This method does not require an any integration. This means that banks can get up and running in no time.
2. Direct connectivity: this is where a bank’s back-office system can directly receive client requests using APIs or any other connectivity option the bank chooses. Galileo comes pre-integrated with the major third-party back-office applications thus shortening the implementation cycle considerably.

With flexible implementation models to choose from, banks can quickly launch digital trade services for their trade clients at lightning speeds. Banks can start with direct access and opt for integration at a later stage.

Galileo TPaaS allows for single sign-on (SSO) connectivity which means the bank’s corporate clients can access the portal from within the bank’s existing corporate channel.

With Galileo TPaaS for banks, we are empowering financial institutions to accelerate the delivery of digital trade services to their clients, whilst also reducing the total cost of ownership in comparison to an in-house build or the traditional software procurement procedures.

We worked with leading corporate clients and financial institutions and designed Galileo TPaaS to help banks to deliver digital trade services to their clients without the need of taking on a complex implementation project or make heavy technology investments towards digitization.

We are continuously adding more features on Galileo and collaborating with other innovative fintech specialists with expertise in artificial intelligence, machine learning and IoT based solutions to enhance and deepen the functionalities we offer within Galileo TPaaS for Banks.  This will result in a significantly improved customer experience and Increased customer satisfaction through innovative value-added services.

The post Part 2: The next frontier of digital trade finance – Galileo TPaaS for Banks appeared first on Bolero (WiseTech Global Group).

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).

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

The post Bolero sees demand rocket for trade digitisation appeared first on Bolero (WiseTech Global Group).

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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Quick update to our clients, partners and collaborators regarding Bolero and the evolving COVID-19 pandemic.

Foremost in our thinking is the health and welfare of our staff and we are taking every precaution to make sure that all Bolero employees and their families are safeguarded. Accordingly, all Bolero staff are now working remotely in line with our business continuity planning and guidelines from the relevant authorities.  We’re pleased to say that due to good planning and execution, we have transitioned smoothly to our new way of working.

We have also taken steps to ensure continued support for our clients and partners and we are actively monitoring and actioning all client requests as a matter of priority. There has been a marked increase in client usage of our platform and we want to take the opportunity to reassure you that we have a strong IT base and operational team in place to ensure that this doesn’t impact our clients and partners so that they are able to continue using our platform with ease.

We continue with trials and development of Galileo at pace and we see now more than ever the need for better tools to enable the digitisation of trade. Galileo allows clients more flexibility in deployment, making remote working and other business continuity protocol scenarios easier than ever.

Adverse events such as COVID-19 almost always have complex ramifications for international trade, however digital technology has now given us the means of alleviating many such problems – especially with relation to the paperwork that is essential to export/import transactions.

Bolero was founded on a vision to enable participants to digitise and easily send documents (including the Bill of Lading) to banks and counterparties electronically, removing the need for physical document flow by courier.  Galileo takes this further by providing participants with a modern and highly functional application to enable the exchange of LCs, Guarantees and documents between corporates, their counterparties and banks in a secure manner.

Once the COVID -19 crisis is over, the well-known $1.5tn gap for SME trade finance will seem insignificant in proportion to the challenges that smaller firms face in getting themselves off the ground again. Despite significant government support across the world, supply chains will be decimated and the likelihood of many companies being unable to continue is high. At Bolero we have a critical role to play in coordination with our ecosystem partners to provide solutions in this space.  We are working with our clients and partners now on initiatives related to this and I welcome any ideas or connections that can help facilitate this.

If you would like to know more about how Bolero can help you and your clients, please get in touch with me.

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Natural calamities such as the current COVID-19 coronavirus demonstrate how reliance on paper trade documentation continues to expose the global supply chain to disruption.

The International Chamber of Shipping estimates COVID-19 is costing the industry $350 million each week. Container spot rates are down, and idle capacity in the world fleet on the increase, while boxes stack up on Chinese quaysides. The impact of the virus has caused some carmakers to suspend operations and there are warnings of falls in Apple smartphone production.

Adverse events such as COVID-19 almost always have complex ramifications for international trade. However, digital technology has now given us the means of alleviating many of the problems – especially in relation to the paperwork that is essential to export/import transactions.

The electronic transfer of critical documents such as bills of lading, letters of credit and letters of indemnity in digital format delivers huge advantages. Think about what happens to paper documents. They have to be couriered either by people using land or air transport crossing physical borders. If there are restrictions in travel and the movement of people  (as there is in China and South Korea)  in force to prevent the spread of infection, then documents stay put and the transaction they support cannot proceed. Similarly, if office staff (at either end) are absent for prolonged periods because of a virus outbreak, all the creation, checking and dispatching of these documents are subsequently halted.

Now consider what happens if we digitise that paper flow. Automation takes care of the data uploading necessary to create digital trade finance documents. The transfer between parties is at the click of a mouse across secure digital networks, which is all a huge advantage in offices short of staff. Compliance checking, too, is automated.

End-to-end visibility on an advanced digital platform also means documents do not disappear, as paper versions frequently do in transit. Encryption and audit trails, meanwhile, reduce the many opportunities for fraud and forgery with paper documents, as they are never out of sight.

One feature of supply chain disruption is that carriers under pressure to achieve fast turn-around are sometimes tempted to release cargoes without presentation of the bill of lading, causing significant problems. The sheer speed of electronic transfer reduces the chances of this happening. Electronic bills of lading (eBLs), letters of credit, packing lists, guarantees and letters of indemnity all transfer at the speed of the internet. There is no waiting around for documents to arrive.

Research has revealed that electronic bills of lading (eBLs) require a tenth of the time it takes to process their traditional paper equivalents. Even without delays caused by acts of god and disease outbreaks, cargoes often sit in port awaiting the arrival of the paper documentation, heightening the potential for demurrage penalties. This is especially true on shorter routes.

Transferring eBLs so swiftly is critical during a time of great disruption. Bills of lading are documents of title and confer ownership of cargo. Without a bill of lading or, where necessary, a letter of indemnity, shipowners may be unwilling to release the relevant cargo. Yet the shipment that has all the correct documentation attached to it is most likely to be released first, especially when normal operations resume.

Digitisation also alleviates many of the difficulties in the financial supply chain connecting exporters, carriers and importers. When bank branches suspend operations to reduce the spread of infection, for example, letters of credit may not be issued in time to meet the payment requirements for goods.

As we move into an era of more powerful storms, increased trade friction and unpredictable virus outbreaks, corporates, banks and carriers all need to think harder about digitising their trade finance documentation if they want to avoid severe delays.

In an article on the COVID-19 difficulties, the Financial Times said the outbreak had prompted a surge in the use of remote working solutions in Asia.  Now is the time for global trade to undergo a similar digital transformation and end the dependence on paper.

The digitisation of trade finance documents cannot eradicate all the problems of epidemics or regional disputes, but it will make trade safer, smarter and faster, abolishing the reliance on out-dated methods that only increase the level of risk.

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