Issue 06 – Rewired

Issue 06 of Trade Treasury Payments explores what happens when established financial systems meet the demands of a changing industry. From institutional memory and the transfer of knowledge between generations to stablecoins, cross border payments, artificial intelligence and the move towards electronic trade documents, this edition looks at how finance is adapting while building on the systems that came before.

The issue examines the changing role of technology in finance, including the growing importance of AI, the evolution of payment infrastructure and the race to meet Swift’s ISO 20022 address deadline. It also looks at warehouse financing, letters of credit, trade credit insurance, supply chain finance and local currency financing, alongside developments across markets and regions around the world.

At the heart of Issue 06 is the idea of being rewired rather than rebuilt. As the foreword puts it, the systems that support trade and finance have lasted because they have adapted over time. The challenge now is to modernise them without losing the knowledge, judgement and experience that made them work in the first place.