Trade Treasury Payments (TTP) launches Fault Lines, a new magazine edition examining the pressures reshaping cross-border finance

Trade Treasury Payments (TTP) has released the latest edition of its flagship magazine, titled Fault Lines, a thematic deep dive into the underlying forces at play in global trade, treasury, and cross-border finance.

At a time when headlines are dominated by tariffs, conflicts, payment innovation, and supply chain disruption, the new issue argues that current events alone rarely explain what is really happening beneath the surface. And it tends to be those underlying conditions that tell the real story.

The edition takes its name from geology. Fault lines form where large forces meet and push against each other over time, creating pressure that can build for years before eventually shifting. Today’s trade and payments ecosystem looks much the same. Large forces continue to move simultaneously, shaped by different priorities and moving at different speeds. The shared boundaries where these forces meet comprise the fault lines of our industry.

For example, countries are trading more with each other than ever before, with businesses today relying on long supply chains that cross many borders. But at the same time, those borders seem to be becoming increasingly more prevalent, with more rules, checks, and tariffs lengthening the psychological distance between trading partners.

The same thing happens with the tools we use. Older systems are still deployed because they are stable and trusted, while newer tools promise faster payments, better data, and constant access. Since both old and new tools are used side by side, pressure builds where they connect and overlap.

It can be easy to think of fault lines as dangerous places because, for many of us, they only really enter our consciousness during the most extreme events. As a result, they become closely associated with moments of destruction and loss of control.

But those are the exception to the norm. Most of the time, fault lines are simply there. They are something to be aware of, certainly, but not something to fear in and of themselves. The pressure they hold does not cause harm on its own. What matters is noticing when that pressure starts to change, and understanding what those changes might be telling us.

Download the magazine on our website.

“The most important changes in our industry rarely happen overnight,” said Deepesh Patel, Editor-in-Chief at Trade Treasury Payments. “They build gradually at the seams of the system. This edition is about helping practitioners recognise those pressure points early, rather than only reacting once disruption hits.”

This edition of the magazine aims to draw attention to the points in many different systems where the forces at play may be moving away from a stable state of coexistence, and towards something more dangerous. The earthquake-esque disruptions that we need time to prepare to defend against.

“We’re not trying to forecast the next rupture,” says Carter Hoffman, Trade and Technology Editor at TTP. “We’re inviting readers to think like seismologists by watching for the small shifts and stresses that may indicate larger changes to come.”

Designed for trade finance, treasury, and payments professionals, the edition combines policy insight, market intelligence, and practical perspectives from banks, fintechs, multilaterals, and corporates worldwide.

Inside this edition

Year-end and Outlook
🔸 2025 year-end review: tariffs, liquidity engineering, payments, and what comes next
🔸 Five predictions that will shape trade, treasury, and payments in 2026

Association Updates

Treasury
🔸 The emperor’s new clothes: Uncomfortable truths for treasurers in 2026
🔸 Stop hedging when it hurts: Less painful ways to manage FX risk in 2026
🔸 Transforming treasury for the future: Inside HSBC’s Voices of Treasury 2025

Payments
🔸 How to drive profitability in transaction banking
🔸 Automation, contingency plans, ISO 20022 and resilience: the 2026 trends reshaping corporate finance and B2B payments
🔸 How to make BNPL safe for SMEs
🔸 Banks can’t keep up: Why it’s time to rethink payments modernisation
🔸 Living the ISO 20022 weekend

Technology
🔸 Between “technology futures”: How standards are transforming digital trade
🔸 The missing ingredients in SME lending and what Bahrain is trying instead
🔸 The next competitive advantage in fintech is media-led leadership
🔸 Advanced digital trade: The Commonwealth’s model

Defence Finance and Geopolitics
🔸 An old bill, due again: A short history of war finance
🔸 No old normal: Inside the West’s economic war
🔸 UK defence finance boosts support for British exporters, says UKEF Director Carl Williamson
🔸 How protectionism is reshaping trade and risk decisions
🔸 Financing defence at scale: A conversation with Brigadier Robbie Boyd
🔸 Musings on the US National Security Strategy, Venezuela, Greenland, and what it might all mean for trade

Credit, Risk, and Capacity
🔸 Who really holds the pen? How MGAs are reshaping capacity in credit and political risk
🔸 IFC’s $10 million CLO signals shift to originate-to-distribute, but will its securitisation reach SMEs?
🔸 Road to Belém: UNDP’s plan to mobilise sustainable finance
🔸 TF COP to launch 10 country sandboxes
🔸 How to make trade finance assets more investable
🔸 The art of the possible: A practical perspective on pre-shipment finance
🔸 The strategic re-emergence of inventory finance

Fault Lines is available now as a free digital edition on the Trade Treasury Payments website.

Download the magazine here

Best regards,

Trade Treasury Payments (TTP)