🌟 Editor's note

Editor’s Note | Week of 11 August 2025

Life in plastic? It’s [not] fantastic.

That pulsing line from Aqua’s Barbie Girl has aged in ways the band surely never intended. Released in 1997 as a bubblegum anthem of synthetic excess, it now reads like an indictment. Today, plastic is everywhere, it’s in our oceans, our food, our bloodstreams. And the impact isn’t evenly felt.

This week, as negotiators convene at the Palais des Nations in Geneva to finalise the Global Plastics Treaty, justice is on the table. A powerful new article in UN Today reminds us that the plastic crisis is also a gendered, racialised, and economic one, hitting women, Indigenous groups, informal waste workers, and small island states the hardest. From hormone disruption to land rights and labour conditions, the treaty’s outcomes will shape more than just what’s in your shopping basket.

If the treaty lands in its current form, we’re looking at future standards that will reshape packaging regulations, redefine supply chain compliance, and force a rethink in subsidies, plastics-related lending, and ESG-linked trade finance. This won’t just impact consumer goods. It will filter into every part of global commerce, from commodity plastics to medical equipment, fast-moving goods to shipping containers. For insurers, banks, and trade credit agencies, expect growing calls for due diligence on plastics exposure, especially in projects across the Global South.

🌍 Read the full article on ‘Toxic Inequity’ in UN Today, published today by Hannah Reinl, Project Manager at the International Gender Champions, & Matthew Wilson, Ambassador of Barbados to the United Nations, WTO and other International Organisations in Geneva - who TTP’s Carter Hoffman caught up with in Johannesburg last month. [Insert Britney reference here.]

We don’t need no creducation

When 90% of your counterparties don’t have a public credit rating, risk decisions often default to reputation, relationships, or gut feel. In this week’s Slow Read, Eleanor Hill unpacks a concept she calls Creducation: the growing need to bring more education, transparency, and data into treasury credit risk practices.

This weeks’ Slow Read falls on Credit Benchmark, a platform reshaping risk visibility by aggregating the views of 40+ banks to create a real-time consensus credit view across 115,000+ entities. From emerging market suppliers to under-the-radar banks, this collective intelligence provides early warnings and wider coverage than the big three agencies, Moody’s, S&P, and Fitch, can offer alone. For treasurers facing opaque portfolios, it’s a game-changer.

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From around the world of liquidity and risk management this week:

• Mauritius makes history as the first African country to embed MLETR into its Bills of Exchange Act, paving the way for digital negotiable instruments.

• Hong Kong accelerates digital trade reform, with rising pressure to compete with Singapore.

• ICISA challenges EIOPA on proposed ‘critical functions’ rules, raising concerns about the blanket classification of credit insurance.

• The WTO flags trouble ahead as global services trade growth halves to just 5% YoY in Q1 2025.

• The UK cuts rates to 4%, even as services inflation remains sticky.

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🎧 Meanwhile, don’t miss our latest podcast drop from the ITFA Educational Seminar:

Trade Finance Terms Explained, featuring Duarte Pedreira, Sean Edwards, Daniela Barrdear and more.

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🌟 And this week’s GAP of the Week is Federico Avellán Borgmeyer, Chief Partner Officer at efcom, a salsa-dancing sustainability advocate with one of the best bios in the business.

🎟️ Upcoming events you’ll find us at:

• ADB Annual Awards – 2 Sept, London

• ITFA Annual Conference – 3–5 Sept, Singapore

• BAFT Trade Finance Workshop – 15–17 Sept, virtual

• Sibos Frankfurt + the TTP x Surecomp Boat Party – 29 Sept–2 Oct

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🪩 Until then, stay cool—

– Deepesh, Eleanor, Joy, Carter

Skip to your favourite part

• Slow read

• Trade digest

  • Mauritius enacts electronic Bill of Exchange law, …

• Risk, Payments and Treasury Digest

• 🗓️ Upcoming events

• Multimedia from Trade Treasury Payments

  • Videos

  • Reels

  • 🏆 GAP of the Week: Federico Avellán Borgmeyer

Slow read

The phrase ‘too big to fail’ has become something of a running joke in treasury circles. From Barings and Lehman’s through to the more recent collapses of Credit Suisse and SVB, history has a nasty habit of reminding us that no counterparty is invincible.

Despite these recurring lessons, corporate treasurers have traditionally been constrained by limited options when assessing credit risk across their operations. The established rating agencies – S&P, Moody’s, and Fitch – provide invaluable guidance, but their coverage is necessarily selective and their pace is deliberately measured.

For treasurers managing entire ecosystems of banks, suppliers, customers, and business partners, these limitations can leave significant blind spots across the credit landscape.

Collective intelligence

This is where Credit Benchmark enters the picture. Founded in 2012, the firm has spent over a decade building what might be the most comprehensive real-time credit database in existence.

Their approach is simple: rather than employing armies of analysts to form independent credit opinions, Credit Benchmark aggregates the assessments already being made by the institutions that arguably know credit risk best – the banks themselves.

“We collect data from banks large, including GSIB banks around the world,” explains David Carruthers, Credit Benchmark’s Research Adviser. “These generally are banks that have had to satisfy a regulator that the way they model credit risk is on point.”

The regulatory requirement is crucial here, since it means banks aren’t simply offering opinions, they’re making assessments that their own capital adequacy depends upon, overseen by regulators who demand rigorous back-testing and validation. It’s what Carruthers calls “the skin in the game view of risk.”

And the numbers are impressive, with data from more than 40 major banks worldwide, covering 115,000 entities across 160 countries. This universe spans corporates, financials, funds, and sovereign entities – essentially the full spectrum of counterparties that treasurers encounter in their daily operations.

Crucially, according to Carruthers, more than 90% of these entities receive no coverage from traditional rating agencies. That means treasurers get visibility into counterparty risk across areas that have traditionally been opaque: suppliers in emerging markets, private equity-backed customers, regional banks with whom deposits or hedging relationships exist, and holding companies or SPVs that might otherwise slip through the cracks.

This is particularly valuable for treasurers managing credit exposure across the supply chain and receivables. “If you’re offering supplier finance, or giving trade credit to a major customer, you want more than just financial statements or brand recognition,” says Carruthers. “You want to know how actual lenders are viewing the risk.”

It’s also an early-warning system. Unlike traditional agencies, which may take months or years to adjust their views, Credit Benchmark shows sentiment shifts in near real time. Banks update their models quarterly or monthly; the consensus reflects these changes weekly. If multiple banks flag deteriorating credit quality, the signal becomes visible.

Trade digest

Mauritius has formally adopted the UNCITRAL Model Law on Electronic Transferable Records (MLETR) by amending its Bills of Exchange Act, under Section 4 of the recently passed Finance Bill (No. XVIII of 2025).

The amendments within the Bill establish legal recognition for electronic bills of exchange (eBoE), defining them alongside paper bills and broader electronic records. The legislation introduces a new Part IA – Electronic Bills of Exchange, embedding core MLETR principles into local law.

A look inside the new law

Under Section 70A, the revised Act ensures that an electronic bill of exchange shall not be denied legal effect solely because it is electronic. Consent to use eBoE may also be implied by conduct, while users cannot be compelled to go electronic without their agreement.

Section 70B mandates that an eBoE must include the same information required in a paper bill, and must use reliable methods to ensure originality, control, integrity, and traceability throughout its lifecycle.

Section 70C addresses control and possession, stating that exclusive control over the eBoE must be established, and transfer of control must mirror the legal effect of physical possession.

Crucially, Section 70D defines a “reliable system” as a framework satisfying data integrity, security, audit, accreditation, and applicable industry standards. The system must ensure the uniqueness of each document, protection against unauthorised alteration, joint control mechanisms, demonstrable control rights, and proper transfer procedures.

Additional provisions cover endorsement, amendment, and conversion between electronic and paper form (Sections 70E and 70F). The law also provides power for the Minister to introduce regulations for technical or procedural matters (Section 70G).

Luca Castellani, legal officer at the Secretariat of the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law (UNCITRAL), and TTP Global Advisory Panel member said, “Mauritius has been an early adopter of UNCITRAL texts on electronic commerce, and it is therefore no surprise that it is the first country in Africa adopting MLETR.”

“The UNCITRAL Secretariat remains engaged with the Mauritian Authorities to leverage the MLETR for the digitalisation of transferable documents and instruments other than bills of exchange.” Castellani said.

Aligning with global trends

Mauritius, an island country off the southeastern coast of East Africa with a population of 1.26 million, joins a growing list of jurisdictions embracing MLETR to facilitate fully electronic trade finance instruments, including bills of exchange, warehouse receipts, and bills of lading. The model law, adopted by UNCITRAL in 2017, promotes functional equivalence between paper and electronic transferable documents, with control as the electronic analogue of possession.

More than 10 countries, including the UK, Singapore, and France, have now adopted MLETR-compatible laws, stimulated by G7‑level digital declarations endorsing the initiative.

Risk, Payments and Treasury Digest

🗓️ Upcoming events

Featured events by TTP

Partner events

Multimedia from Trade Treasury Payments

Videos

Reels

🏆 GAP of the Week: Federico Avellán Borgmeyer

Federico Avellán Borgmeyer is Chief Partner Officer at factoring technology company, efcom.

🌟 Daily Mission:

• •Grow my international young team to become independent-minded and yet professional leaders in our industry;

• Design, preach, pray, advocate, promote, create, partner, sell, integrate sustainable and value-added digital technology in financial institutions;

• Love my wife

🤳 Behind the scenes:

• Dance salsa with my wife whenever and wherever possible

• Cooking and hosting friends and family, the more, the better

• 2-4 weeks ⁠full-fasting and retreating at least once per year

🪷 Life Mantras:

• Live your life the fullest, do everything you wanted and regret nothing

• Never give up

• Wake up in the morning and be able to live the face you see

📋 Hidden facts:

• Started up and became global market leader for an organization that brought eclipse chasers and astronomers across the globe to observing total solar eclipses

Did You Know? Over 90% of global counterparties have no credit rating from S&P, Moody’s, or Fitch.

Till next time,

Trade Treasury Payments (TTP)