Open Trade Finance Platform for SMEs - Covid 19 and beyond

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The Open Trade Finance Platform (OTFP) de-risks the provision of trade finance to SMEs first, by enabling low cost legal support and insurance against international invoices and contracts and second, by matching those exporting SMEs to trade finance providers. The SME trade finance gap is a particular problem in the Covid-19 environment because many exporting SMEs are falling outside core support measures such as CBILS that are available to other SME businesses, especially if they are in services or digital sectors. It costs a bank on average up to £60,000 to onboard a trade finance client. In the current environment where exports remain significantly below pre-pandemic levels SMEs are finding it increasingly difficult to access finance because trade credit insurance providers have become more risk averse. Banks have pulled out of the market for businesses with turnovers below £6.5m because the costs of onboarding are too high and the risks increasingly outside of the appetite of major non-government insurers. SME exporters represent around 9% of the UK's business base and will suffer unduly from both these trends at the current time. These are often smaller and younger businesses, thus they have insufficient track-record to warrant this risk. The OTFP is a means tackling this challenge to ensure these companies survive and thrive beyond the crisis.The OTFP is a web-based and mobile app that links SME export finance requirements to suitable providers of that finance, in banks or non-banks. It takes the financial and business development requirements of the SME and uses AI to match those requirements with the major providers of trade finance who already operate on blockchain or Platform as a Service (PaaS). In addition to this stand-alone capability, Coriolis is proud to be working with large platform as a service providers of back office software to banks to enable modular API adoption of the software.The OTFP is a timely and innovative development that addresses the specific needs of a group of excluded small businesses. It will be delivered in complete compliance with government guidelines on social distancing and within the framework of the lockdown. Its immediate benefit to the UK could be as much as £30bn in SME export contribution to GDP at a time when global trade is threatened. Its lasting impact will be in quicker and cheaper SME access to trade finance and bank screening of SME clients.