Narrowing the trade finance gap for LDCs

Development banks, international organisations and LDCs themselves are ,however, working to bridge the trade finance gap by improving product knowledge, mitigating compliance risk and investing in digitisation.

LDCs have long been disproportionately impacted by a global trade finance gap that the Asian Development Bank estimated in 2019 exceeded $1.5 trillion. Many, including the WTO, believe this to have widened since. A recent report by the African Export-Import Bank (Afreximbank) confirmed that in the first four months of 2020, around 38 per cent of local banks in Africa reported rising rejection rates for trade finance instruments like letters of credit, while more correspondent banking relationships were cancelled.

LDCs are particularly vulnerable to global shocks, such as financial crises or the current pandemic, which either weaken international banks' risk appetite or trigger a surge in competing financing demand from other countries. This is in part because LDCs must effectively "import" such finance from foreign banks. Low savings rates in LDCs mean local banks usually have only small deposit bases from which to lend.

The pandemic has also hurt many LDCs’ exports and remittances, shrinking their access to US dollars - a currency required in 80 per cent  of global trade transactions. A deterioration in many LDCs’ sovereign risk during the pandemic, as lockdowns eroded GDP and increased external debt, also impacted lenders’ perception of their private-sector risk. This has made it harder and more expensive for LDC companies, and especially SMEs, to secure trade-related credit lines.

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Funding and guarantees

Multilateral Development Banks (MDBs), Development Finance Institutions (DFIs) and international organisations have rallied to support trade flows through the crisis with a string of coordinated trade finance facilitation programmes.

For example, the World Bank’s International Finance Corporation (IFC) stepped forward with $2 billion in funding and risk sharing via its Global Trade Liquidity Programme and Critical Commodities Finance Programme. Its Global Trade Finance Programme tabled an additional $2 billion to cover financial institutions’ payment risks to encourage them to offer trade financing, especially to SMEs.

In March 2021, Afreximbank approved a $3 billion Pandemic Trade Impact Mitigation Facility (PATIMFA). This was on top of the $1.5 billion pandemic response facility (COPREFA), offering direct funding, guarantees, documentary credit confirmation and cross-currency swaps to African firms, commercial banks and central banks.

The WTO Director General, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, acknowledged in May ,however, that the estimated $35 billion provided by the MDBs over the past year will merely dent the global trade finance gap. She stressed the importance of trade finance for LDCs and urged the WTO members to accelerate efforts to develop a dedicated trade finance work programme.


Investing in expertise

Plugging knowledge gaps around trade finance and its various instruments is crucial to helping improve LDCs’ access. Several trade finance facilitation programmes ,therefore, include technical assistance components that extend training to trade finance professionals at banks in low-income countries.

In many developing and developed countries, it can be difficult to identify specific impediments to trade finance.The LDCs could ,therefore, benefit from trade finance being included in the EIF’s Diagnostic Trade Integration Studies (DTIS) and incorporated into countries’ trade development strategies from the start.

This is currently only done if the LDCs request it and although interest is growing among Asian countries - with trade finance diagnostics successfully completed for Myanmar and Cambodia, for example - African nations have been slower to take advantage of the opportunity.


Strengthening compliance

Bolstering awareness of regulatory requirements around know your customer (KYC), anti-money laundering (AML) and combating the financing of terrorism (CFT) among trade finance providers in LDCs and other low-income countries is also important for reducing the likelihood that international banks will “de-risk” out of emerging market.

It is important ,however, to strike a careful balance, ensuring regulatory rigour - for example, around KYC and mobile money transfer limits - does not create administrative hurdles or disincentivise the formalisation of trade in LDCs, Ahmady cautions. “If you have to submit your passport for a $1 transaction, I think most people would agree that’s over-zealous.”



Payments digitisation
The LDCs also need support from organisations such as the WTO to develop trade finance products that incentivise companies to finance trade through formal banking channels, Ahmady adds.

Although Afghanistan’s trade remains mostly cash based, with minimal trade finance support so far, it has invested in a digitisation push that Ahmady believes will help change this. Having spent the last year tackling technical hurdles associated with integrating banks and mobile companies into the country’s mobile payments system, he expects electronic transfers to significantly increase over the coming year and beyond - and for this to facilitate the formalisation and financing of trade.

While previously a trader at the border would have to take his customs invoice to a central bank branch to make the payment, “because we have now connected all the banks with the central bank electronically, that person can now go to any bank to make a payment for a customs invoice,” he notes. “The next step will be then allowing him to make payments via his phone for that invoice or customs payment directly to the Ministry of Finance. Those are the capabilities we are working on.”

For Afghanistan to next tap opportunities in domestic and cross-border e-commerce, websites and shops must be able to accept payments online. This will only happen once merchants are able to spend money in the system rather than immediately cashing out. Such payments and digitisation reforms will over time significantly improve trade finance opportunities for exporters, Ahmady believes. - trade4devnews.enhancedif.org