Out now: Mind the gap

When we launched Trade Treasury Payments (TTP), we weren’t trying to reinvent the wheel. We are ripping up the media and publication blueprint, smuggling intel from [deleted], and repackaging it in a way your CFO might actually read. Because let’s be honest, if it’s not painfully dense, it’s painfully dull.

We aimed to highlight the intersections, the vulnerabilities, and the hidden money flows that keep our global economy moving.

With Issue 02: Mind the Gap, we’re turning building momentum on that ambition. Since launch, we’ve published 286 pieces of original content, including 36 videos, podcasts, and reels, four webinars, and reporting from 26 conferences across five continents. We’ve hosted three roundtables in London and Rio, published eight flagship editorial editions, and engaged a growing community of nearly 4,000 followers, with 330,000+ impressions. That reach is powered by your feedback, contributions, critique, and shared ambition.

Our old magazine is no more. No more rehashed old content stitched chronologically into a static PDF. During our very own ‘TTP-does-non-corporate-strategy-day’, we started from a truly blank sheet. We realised not all content is equal, so why treat it the same? Some pieces deserve the centre stage. Others work best as short, sharp insights. That’s why you’ll find hero reads, long reads, short reads, reads-within-reads… and yes, even nested reads within nested reads.

Visually, we’ve reduced white space, tightened our design and columns, and created a flow you can pick up, pause, have a swim in the sea, and return to. Just make sure you use suncream.

We’re zeroing in on gaps: liquidity access, policy frameworks, correspondent banking, payments infrastructure, tariff coverage, and geopolitics. These are the chasms that slow trade and fragment markets.

Take Mongolia: when correspondent lines were withdrawn, Golomt Bank lost more than USD plumbing — it lost legitimacy. “Getting correspondent access is not just about banking. It’s about legitimacy. It’s about being seen again,” said Unengerel Chuluunbat. With EBRD, BNY, and ADB support, that access is returning, and sending a powerful signal of reintegration.

We also explore defence finance: a chain is only as strong as its weakest SME link. “If a Tier‑2 or Tier‑3 supplier lacks working capital, it becomes a bottleneck, even if governments are pouring money into the top of the chain.” We look at the emerging proposal of a multilateral Defence, Security & Resilience Bank to address that structural issue.

We revisit mercantilism as a contemporary economic strategy. “The labels have changed. The game has not.” We unpack what that means for small states finding themselves priced out by subsidy races and trade‑policy realignment.

We also spotlight corridor-building, from infrastructure to payment rails. “Infrastructure doesn’t stop at roads and railways. Liquidity corridors are being paved, too.” That comes through in Uzbek factoring reforms, eBL innovation, and EBRD connectivity work.

Importantly, this edition carries voices from the Global South: Uzbekistan, Mongolia, Namibia, Pacific economies, the places where gaps are widest and where meaningful change can echo most powerfully.

We’ve also brought in new conversations: a candid dialogue with Hon. Shirley Ayorkor Botchwey, Secretary‑General of the Commonwealth, on regional empowerment; and a conversation with Odile Renaud‑Basso, EBRD President, on the role of trade finance in a fractured global context. 

A personal note for Londoners familiar with the Northern line (specifically Embankment). Every time I used to step onto the Tube at Nine Elms, I’d hear that rich voice: “Mind the gap.” You all know that sound. It’s the voice of Oswald Laurence, recorded in the 1960s. After his death, his widow Margaret would visit Embankment just to hear him speak. When the announcement was replaced, she petitioned to bring it back, and Transport for London restored his voice in 2013, digitising the original reel-to-reel tape. 

That’s what minding the gap is about, not just plastering over the cracks that came to be. In our world, it’s about reconnecting correspondent lines, updating analogue systems without erasing trust, and giving overlooked markets the editorial attention they deserve. It’s about remembering the signal, not just the noise.

This magazine, and the broader TTP platform, wouldn’t exist without the brilliance and hard work of our core team. A heartfelt thank you to Alexandra, Carter, David, Devanshee, Eleanor, Joy, Ksenia, Mandeep, Nigel, Rudy, and Sheena.

We also owe huge thanks to our founding sponsors, institutional partners, associations, multilateral development partners, and especially our editorial board and newly established Global Advisory Panel (yes, another GAP), do mind them!

We’ll return after summer with fresh tans, new reports, educational guides, challenging interviews, controversial videos (bloopers included) and much much more.

Have a restful, energising summer. And if you find yourself by yourself for a moment, think: how are you minding the gap?

Happy reading,

The Editorial Team