VIDEO | Using digitalisation to navigate macro challenges in trade finance - Trade Treasury Payments

• Home
• Blog
• VIDEO | Using digitalisation to navigate macro challenges in trade finance

VIDEO | Using digitalisation to navigate macro challenges in trade finance

At the ITFA Americas Annual Conference in Miami, Trade Treasury Payments (TTP) spoke with Dominic Capolongo, Chief Revenue Officer at LiquidX, about the growing role of technology in addressing operational bottlenecks and capital pressures in trade finance.

Capolongo said, “Trade is becoming a much bigger asset class. It’s expanding in reach – from large-cap multinationals to middle-market firms – and that growth is putting pressure on traditional systems and processes that were never designed to scale in this way.”

That expansion, he noted, is forcing a shift in how both banks and non-bank financial players approach trade finance. Historically dominated by manual workflows, trade finance departments are now grappling with the cost of human capital and the inefficiency of outdated reporting models.

Capolongo said, “When I ran a trade business at a bank, we relied on spreadsheets. Once a month, someone would come in and consolidate data from multiple systems just to give us a picture of our exposures. That was the only time we had anything close to a complete view.”

As newer entrants compete for market share and regulatory scrutiny intensifies, Capolongo believes real-time, transaction-level data is becoming essential, not just for operational oversight, but for credit risk and capital allocation.

He said, “To be nimble, to manage your book well, you need to know exactly what’s happening in real time. Capital is expensive, and the ability to deploy it intelligently gives institutions a huge advantage.”

But technology adoption still faces hurdles.

According to Capolongo, many institutions have legacy cost structures and entrenched operational models that resist change. “You have teams in place and processes that are already budgeted for. Changing that means changing mindsets,” he said. “Trade finance has traditionally lagged when it comes to digital transformation, but that’s starting to shift, especially now that capital efficiency is front and centre.”

Reflecting on the conference, Capolongo noted a sense of momentum in the room.

“There’s definitely more energy around the space than ever before. But with that comes uncertainty – geopolitical, regulatory, competitive,” he said. “In that kind of environment, having the right data at your fingertips becomes essential.”

You can also watch the video via Youtube.