🌟 Editor's note

Editor’s Note | Week of 22 December 2025

By Carter Hoffman

Do you have a special exporter in your life and absolutely no idea what to get them this holiday season? They already have enough conference tote bags and lanyards and branded water bottles to fill Santa’s sleigh.

Do we have just the thing for you!

This week, we officially launched The Exporter’s Playbook, produced by Trade Treasury Payments in collaboration with Alinea Customs — and yes, we’re calling it the perfect gift for exporters everywhere. It comes in at a very sensible 72 pages, neatly organised into four sections and designed to be useful, readable, and to give your special exporter that ‘just one more page’ feeling. Best of all, it’s completely free to download. No wrapping paper required.

And if you order now (by which we mean, click download), you’ll also receive our special holiday week bundle! A carefully curated collection of everything we’ve covered across trade, treasury, and payments this week. A value of at least £70,000 in pure editorial sparkle. Yours today for the low, low price of… also free.

In the bundle, you’ll get our Slow Read on TF COP’s latest push to launch sandboxes across 10 countries, an insider's look at Mexico’s tariffs announcement, a taste of how MGAs are reshaping capacity in credit and political risk, plus a little seasonal theatre with The Remain Zombies Pantomime.

Is that special exporter in your life not a reader? Don’t worry, we’ve got them covered too! As a bonus add-on to the holiday week bundle, you’ll also receive our extra special multimedia coverage, including the recording of The Exporter’s Playbook launch webinar and a new podcast on insurance and multilateral development banks. Because sometimes the best way to learn about compliance and documentation is… to press play and pretend it’s a festive film.

So, whether you’re wrapping gifts or wrapping up your awards application (in case you missed it, the deadline has been extended to Jan 2nd), consider this your friendly reminder that the best presents are practical, free, and come from your friends at TTP.

Until next time — happy exporting, and happy holidays.

— The TTP Editorial Team

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• Slow Read

• TF COP to launch 10 country sandboxes

• Trade digest

• Treasury, payment and global banking digest

• 🗓️ Upcoming events

• Multimedia from Trade Treasury Payments

• 🚀 Our latest edition

Slow Read

TF COP to launch 10 country sandboxes

The estimated $2.5 trillion trade finance gap – which many refer to as the small and medium-sized enterprise (SME) finance gap – is a barrier to global growth, innovation and inclusion. Unlocking micro and SME (MSME) potential through access to finance, particularly in emerging markets, will help to diversify economies, expand employment and spread prosperity.

The barriers to MSME finance are well documented, including high compliance costs, capital constraints, shrinking correspondent banking, information gaps, macroeconomic and geopolitical risks, and limited adoption of digital platforms.

By overcoming these and other challenges, the Trade Finance Conference of Parties (TF COP) aims to halve the trade finance gap by 2030 and eliminate it by 2040, defining it as an environmental, social and governance issue. At the launch of its task force in July, it pledged to engage with the United Nations (UN) to achieve formal recognition of the trade finance gap as a critical obstacle to attaining the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

Its fourth meeting since the inaugural event in October 2024 was held at Crown Agents Bank’s London offices on November 21. The summit brought together more than 150 trade finance practitioners from across the ecosystem, including commercial banks, multilateral development banks (MDBs), fintechs, insurers, trade associations, and non-bank financial institutions (NBFIs), to share information and design solutions to address the gap.

In his keynote address, John Sam-Kubam, CEO for Africa at Crown Agents Bank, issued three calls to action: “First, we need to champion SME inclusion. Second, let’s activate blended finance, using the momentum of the Compromiso de Sevilla and TF COP to design programmes that combine guarantees and insurance with commercial debt. Third, let’s measure and report. We need to track SMEs served, trade flows and value enabled, and make the data public so we can identify success, refine the models and replicate that success.”

Shona Tatchell, Director – Trade Facilitation Programme, European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), stated that the time when sustainability and inclusion will be embedded in every transaction – “ensuring that growth is both green and fair” – is not far away with the advent of real-time data, artificial intelligence, digital identities and tokenisation.

“Imagine a world where every viable business, regardless of size, sector or geography, can access the capital it needs to trade, grow and innovate,” said Tatchell. “In this future, trade finance is not a privilege for the few, but a foundation for inclusive and sustainable economic development. The tools and frameworks to achieve this vision already exist in some form. The challenge and the opportunity is to bring them together at scale through bold leadership, collaboration and a relentless focus on inclusion.”

Solution designing

The TF COP’s main focus is on developing and showcasing innovative and practical solutions to close the trade finance gap. To enable brainstorming around new solutions, the summit divided into 11 breakout rooms covering topics such as the sustainability agenda, legal frameworks, technology and data, insurance-led solutions, and Africa. 

One suggestion that came out of the workshops is to launch test environments, or sandboxes, in a minimum of 10 markets over the next 12 months. Adopted formally by the TF COP Task Force Incubator, the sandboxes aim to develop locally relevant solutions by bringing in multiple market stakeholders, including academics, think tanks, SMEs, asset managers, central banks, local banks, regulators, technology enablers, etc. Starting with a limited number of pilots is a core part of an iterative process, allowing for testing, gathering feedback and refining the solution before rolling it out to other markets.   

In addition, the breakout sessions discussed proposals around:

• Coordinating engagement with African regulators, as well as developing education programmes for regulators, SMEs and Tier 2 and 3 banks;

• Creating a market infrastructure for trade finance to make illiquid markets liquid, and establishing a secondary market for trade finance instruments;

• Advancing a simplification of payment obligations for trade transactions, expanding the invoice registries concept and unlocking priority treatment in restructuring;

• Developing insurance solutions to address the lower tiers of risk and push capital deeper into high‑impact segments;

• Legal entity identifiers and e-invoice frameworks; 

• Changing MDB mandates to align SME financing with the UN SDGs. 

Trade digest

Treasury, payment and global banking digest

🗓️ Upcoming events

Multimedia from Trade Treasury Payments

🚀 Our latest edition

Did You Know? 

Under the latest interpretations of customs valuation rules, incorrect Incoterms selection can directly distort declared customs value, even when invoice prices are accurate. Authorities in several jurisdictions now scrutinise whether freight, insurance and handling costs have been correctly included or excluded based on the chosen Incoterm, meaning an error in contract terms can trigger reassessments, penalties or delayed clearance, even without intent to misdeclare.

As border controls tighten, customs authorities are increasingly using post clearance audits to identify Incoterms misalignment, making documentation consistency as critical as pricing accuracy for exporters in 2025.

Till next time,

Trade Treasury Payments (TTP)