🌟 Editor's note

Editor’s Note | Week of 12 October 2025

After four long, caffeine-fuelled days in Frankfurt, our focus this past week moved east to Sofia. The Bulgarian capital played host to the 16th CEE & SEE Regional Conference on Factoring and Supply Chain Finance, which brought together banks, fintechs, and policymakers to talk about bringing more liquidity to emerging Europe.

It is also where we, in collaboration with FCI and the Association of Corporate Treasurers, launched our new Supply Chain Finance Guide. We’ve spent quite some time putting this together to explore SCF from a corporate lens, looking at how treasurers can structure programmes that work for them and their suppliers.

Off the conference floor, we were also busy unpacking some of the legal and policy shifts that are shaping trade finance today. Our new piece on Private International Law looks at why enforcing electronic trade documents isn’t as complicated as some have made it out to be. Our article on the IFC’s $510 million CLO talks about how securitisation could evolve to reach smaller firms.

We also featured a piece from our friends at Pangea Risk that looks at the rise in youth-led protests around the world over the past several months and tries to make sense of what this means for political stability.

It’s been a busy stretch, but a productive one. Between new research, events, and launches, the conversation around access to finance is moving forward in practical ways, which is a reassuring sign of progress. There's plenty more to come in the weeks ahead.

Until next time—stay steady.

— Deepesh, Eleanor, Joy, Carter

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• Slow Read

  • Let’s look at the UK as an example. Under UK law, …

• Conflict of laws: what it is and why it matters

• Trade digest

• Treasury, payment and global banking digest

• Special Report

• Mobilisation outpaces state responses

• 🗓️ Upcoming events

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• Meet the GAP

• 🚀 Our latest edition

Slow Read

Let’s look at the UK as an example. Under UK law, the Electronic Trade Documents Act 2023 (ETDA) now gives specified electronic trade documents, including bills of lading, bills of exchange, and warehouse receipts, the same legal effect as paper if held in a “reliable system”. This law, built on the principles of MLETR, provides legal certainty within the country, but what about when a transaction involves another jurisdiction without such legislation? Can the digital version still withstand legal scrutiny?

That answer to this question lies in a field known as private international law, or conflict of laws, rather than in the format of the document itself.

Conflict of laws: what it is and why it matters

The term conflict of laws (or private international law (PIL)) refers to the body of rules that determines which legal system and which court should decide a dispute when a case spans more than one jurisdiction. It determines three things: which law applies (choice of law), who decides (jurisdiction or choice of forum, including arbitration), and whether the outcome will be recognised (enforceability).

Sarah Green, Head of Digital Assets and Trade Finance at D2 Legal Technology and former law commissioner for England and Wales, said, “This label [PIL] refers to the issue created by the fact that each jurisdiction has its own laws… Not only might these different laws come to different conclusions on the same issues, but it might also not be clear which courts should hear a particular dispute and which jurisdiction’s law they should apply to it.”

The EU’s Rome I Regulation is one example of how these issues can be handled. It says that parties to a contract are free to choose the law that governs it (referred to in legal parlance as “party autonomy”). If the parties do not make a choice, the law is decided based on factors such as where the contract was made or where it is most closely connected (“default connecting factors”). 

The regulation also makes clear that some rules cannot be avoided, such as mandatory national laws (“overriding mandatory provisions”) or public policy concerns (“public policy exception”). Rome I expressly excludes transferable documents and instruments from its scope. For those instruments, private international law rules are found in other instruments such as the Geneva Conventions and the Hague rules.

While party autonomy (choosing governing law) is long established for transferable instruments on paper, electronic transferable records add some practical considerations. For example, in France, a recent decree requires certification of the service provider. That raises the practical question of whether an e-bill of lading issued under English law needs to meet that certification to be recognised in France? Some lawyers consider that contractual mechanisms may address the point, but it shows how ETRs can trigger additional checks alongside the core conflict-of-laws analysis. That is why domestic laws and industry rules remain important for trade documents.

Trade digest

Treasury, payment and global banking digest

Special Report

Youth-led protests are reshaping politics and impacting economies across emerging markets, with unrest spreading from Nepal to Kenya, Indonesia, to Mongolia. Driven by inequality, corruption, and exclusion, these movements mobilise rapidly through digital platforms and resist blunt state repression. As demographic shifts intensify, recurring protest cycles are set to become structural features of politics, testing resilience and demanding forward-looking strategies from policymakers and businesses alike.

Across continents, governments are being tested by youth-driven protests that reveal the fragility of the social contract. From Nepal to Kenya, Indonesia to Türkiye, recent flashpoints show how economic frustration, political exclusion, and governance failures can rapidly spill onto the streets. While these movements share generational characteristics, often mobilised through digitally connected Gen Z social networks, they are shaped foremost by country-specific grievances and political dynamics closer to home. In some cases, protests have already forced governments into concessions, reshaping tax directives and political agendas. With economic headwinds and weak institutions persisting in many states, the risk of further unrest remains high, demanding close attention from policymakers, business leaders, and investors navigating these volatile environments.

While each case is distinct, there are some similarities that could point to new markets that carry comparable vulnerabilities. The most recent surge of unrest in Nepal in early September is therefore not an isolated flashpoint, but a critical signal that youth activism is entering a less predictable, more disruptive phase. Youth-led unrest is emerging as a structural force, rooted in local grievances but likely to erupt simultaneously across multiple countries facing similar challenges. For commercial stakeholders, resilience now depends on anticipating the political agency of a restless generation reshaping its future. The trajectory of these movements will test governments and global businesses alike, rewarding those able to account for social volatility into long-term plans and adapt to shifting demographics. Investors and commercial operators must balance traditional economic fundamentals with social risk factors such as unemployment, inequality, and state-level corruption, within their strategies.

PANGEA-RISK highlights how youth unrest is reshaping politics and economies in emerging markets, identifying where volatility is most likely to occur and how demographic change is driving both instability and transformation. Our aim is to provide foresight that helps anticipate disruption, manage exposure, and inform strategies to evolving risks.

Mobilisation outpaces state responses

The events in Nepal in early September signal that youth unrest has entered a phase beyond predictable cycles and established pressure points. The sudden decision by the government to block access to 26 social media platforms triggered a national uprising in less than 48 hours. While earlier protest waves in the region had centred around economic grievances or corruption scandals, this round drew its momentum from what younger citizens viewed as a direct assault on their political voice, their access to information, and their role in the national conversation. The recent unrest was the cumulative effect of repeated state attempts to control how young people express themselves and engage politically. And, as a result, within three days, state institutions had been torched, more than 70 people were killed, over 300 were injured, and the prime minister was forced to resign.

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Cruz Gonzalez, WTW

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Did You Know? Many corporates say their biggest barrier to adopting supply chain finance isn’t cost, it’s complexity. At TTP’s corporate roundtable, treasury leaders revealed that suppliers often disengage due to paperwork, inconsistent bank appetite, or misaligned KPIs between procurement and treasury. One treasurer even noted that onboarding fatigue, not funding rates, was the main reason programmes stalled.

Till next time,

Trade Treasury Payments (TTP)