🌟 Editor's note

Editor’s Note | Week of 2 March 2026

By Deepesh Patel

Our thoughts are with all those in the Middle East affected by ongoing instability.

All eyes are on developments in and around Iran and the Strait of Hormuz this weekend. The Strait is just 21 miles wide at its narrowest point, carrying roughly one fifth of global oil consumption and a significant share of LNG exports, making it one of the most strategically important waterways in the global economy.

The situation has significant implications for energy markets, shipping and cross-border trade.

TTP’s Global Advisory Panel member, Dr Robert Besseling, CEO of Pangea Risk, has prepared a report outlining the current risks posed by the Middle East situation.

For those in the industry, here’s what to watch:

1. War-risk insurance is being withdrawn/cancelled for vessels transiting the Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz, with brokers indicating premiums could rise as much as 25–50%, materially increasing the cost of passage for tankers and bulk carriers. (FT)

2. Major traders and shipping lines have suspended crude, fuel and LNG shipments through Hormuz, and some tankers have diverted or anchored outside the strait, effectively tightening supply even without a formal blockade.

3. Brent crude has already climbed toward the high $70s/low $80s per barrel on risk premia, and analysts warn prices could exceed $100/bbl if disruptions persist, which would increase costs across trade, logistics and consumer goods. (Reuters)

4. Higher oil, freight and insurance costs are feeding directly into working capital and liquidity pressures which will likely extend transit times, increasing landed costs and lengthening cash conversion cycles for traders and corporates.

5. FX markets are responding with safe-haven flows and pressure on energy-importers’ currencies, raising hedging costs and derivative margin requirements, while trade credit insurers and lenders are likely to reassess risk limits on exposed corridors.

A busy week at TTP, with a few new milestones behind the scenes. We hosted our latest webinar, looking at the growing challenge of trade fraud and what needs to change to address it. Don’t worry if you missed it, we’ll have the full recording ready for you good time. And of course, preparations are well underway for our International Women’s Day event coming up a little later on this week.

On the editorial side, there’s plenty to catch up on from last week as well. Our Slow Read this week is a dive into how platforms, exchanges, and registries are starting to align operational and legal frameworks in trade. Across the week, we also covered the latest on US trade tariffs (never a dull moment there), digital trade as a driver of sustainable growth, and the EBRD’s updated economic outlook. In treasury and payments, we looked at the limits of cross-border real-time payments, new platforms for SMEs, and a major World Bank-backed initiative to expand lending.

As always, plenty to read and watch.

Until next time — stay safe.

— The TTP Editorial Team

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PANGEA-RISK Special Report: Iran widens conflict to Gulf States and Maritime Straits to force US recalibration

Dr Robert Besseling, CEO, Pangea Risk, Global Advisory Panel member, Trade Treasury Payments

Following renewed US and Israeli airstrikes, Iran has broadened the battlefield to
include Gulf states, targeting US military facilities and civilian infrastructure to raise
the cost of further strikes and compress the escalation timeline. Iraq remains the
primary proxy escalation channel, with Iranian-aligned armed groups positioned to
sustain pressure on US bases, while the Houthis expand maritime risk and Hezbollah
exercises calibrated restraint to preserve deterrence. Concurrent disruption across
Gulf aviation hubs and the Strait of Hormuz is tightening energy and logistics systems,
with sustained transit instability or repeated strikes carrying the risk of broader
regional escalation and systemic energy market shock.

On 28 February, the United States (US) and Israel launched a joint military operation
against Iran, striking nuclear facilities, military command infrastructure, and senior leadership compounds across more than 20 provinces. Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei was killed in a strike on his compound in Tehran, along with the defence minister, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) commander, and several members of the defence council. This comes as indirect nuclear negotiations in Geneva, mediated by Oman, were ongoing, with Israel preparing for possible escalation even as diplomacy continued. Iran's retaliation has been immediate, geographically dispersed, and qualitatively different from prior escalatory rounds: ballistic missiles and drones struck Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and Iraq in a simultaneous salvo that targeted both US military installations and civilian aviation infrastructure across the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC).

The conflict has moved beyond the bilateral confrontation that characterised the Twelve-Day War of June 2025 and has drawn the GCC states into its operational perimeter as direct targets. Iran's identification of Gulf governments as co-belligerents (reflected in its targeting choices) has forced a strategic reckoning that GCC had spent years attempting to avoid. Simultaneously, Iran's proxy networks across Iraq, Yemen, and Lebanon are under pressure to activate, while the Strait of Hormuz faces its first effective disruption since the waterway's modern role in global energy trade was established. The commercial consequences are spreading across the oil, liquefied natural gas (LNG), aviation, and shipping markets, with the risk of sustained infrastructure destruction in the Gulf's energy-producing heartland posing the most severe downside scenario.

PANGEA-RISK assesses that Iran’s strategy of widening the conflict to Gulf states and activating selective proxy pressure is designed to force rapid US recalibration.

Slow Read

Platforms, exchanges, and registries: Aligning operational and legal aspects

Technologies make financing transactions more efficient by enabling instant communication, frictionless payment settlement, the creation of digital assets, the recording of transfers, and bringing together multiple parties. These processes occur within digital infrastructures that label themselves registries, exchanges, or platforms.

What do they have in common and how are they different? We both spoke at the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law (UNCITRAL) Colloquium on “Harmonizing law in the age of digital trade and finance”. Divided into two streams, Stream 1 focused on digital assets and secured financing, while Stream 2 focused on digital platforms and private law. Stream 1 featured a panel (#5) that explored digital platforms for transactions and asset-based registries, and a panel (#10) in Stream 2 focused on supply-chain platforms. In our panels, we identified the various functions of these three infrastructures and examined their legal effects. Legal certainty is critical to the functioning of these infrastructures and supply chain operations.

While technology certainly delivers benefits, it could also increase legal uncertainty and complexity. When a company joins a platform, exchange, or registers some information in a registry, what legal rights does it acquire? Platforms, exchanges, and registries need to be distinguished. They may be established pursuant to some law or a private agreement of their participants. The former may typically provide for some (limited) legal effect, such as a transfer of a receivable on a receivables platform, but the latter won’t, so that a recording of an invoice in a registry for invoices would not produce the legal effect of transferring the related receivable.

Platforms, exchanges, and registries play a significant role in the financing of tangible and intangible assets, including goods covered by bills of lading and rights to payment. These infrastructures may draw their legal foundations from the UNCITRAL’s Model Law on Electronic Transferable Records (MLETR) or similar legislation. How should we design and explain the legal framework to the users to ensure that these technological infrastructures deliver the expected benefits while reducing legal complexity?

To understand the legal effect, one must understand the process. Registries, exchanges, and platforms may provide the following processes and services. Many of these infrastructures support supply chain, value chain, and trade finance products.

Supply chain finance

Supply chain finance relies on the transfer of receivables, which should confer priority and effective enforceability on a financial institution. Collateral registries established under secured transactions law, such as the United Arab Emirates Federal Law No. 4 of 2020 on Security Rights over Movable Assets, establish priority and protection against other creditors, particularly in insolvency proceedings. However, laws of this nature do not provide financial institutions with tools to verify whether the receivable exists, whether it is fraudulent, or whether the underlying transaction violates any sanctions. This is the function of other types of registries and platforms.

Invoice registries may be established voluntarily by associations of financial institutions, which agree to share information on invoices they finance with the registry, thereby reducing the risk of illegitimate transactions and double-financing. Recent examples include invoice registries established by MonetaGo in Bahrain and Singapore.

The receivables finance market is populated by other infrastructures that facilitate transactions, with or without legal effect. Trademo provides a solution that enables financial institutions to verify whether the transaction that generates a receivable is legitimate and does not violate sanctions. Registries and private-sector infrastructure often operate alongside public-sector-supported platforms, such as the Trade Receivables Discounting System (TReDS) in India and the Emirates Development Bank National Supply Chain Finance Platform, which both facilitate various reverse factoring functions.

Transfers of receivables on these platforms acquire a legal effect only between the assignor and assignee, which must effectuate a registration in a collateral registry for the transfer to gain effectiveness against third parties. Technology is powering new infrastructures, but we need to understand their legal effects.

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Did You Know? 

The Strait of Hormuz carries approximately 20 million barrels of oil per day, around 31% of global seaborne crude flows, and nearly one third of globally traded fertiliser exports also transit the Gulf.

Pipeline bypass capacity in Saudi Arabia and the UAE can absorb only 15–20% of normal throughput, meaning even short-lived disruption has the potential to push energy, fertiliser and food input prices higher within weeks.

Trade Treasury Payments (TTP)