A peer-to-peer (p2p) marketplace for trade finance, Tradeteq, has fully launched after a pilot phase.
Tradeteq connects trade finance originators worldwide with institutional investors, who can use their capital to fund the trade finance facilities. Tradeteq generates income from fees on transaction volumes.
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The platform’s stated aim is to help trade financiers build an “originate-and-distribute” model. Chief executive officer and founder Christopher Gugelman told Leasing Life that 12 originators are on the platform at the moment, the majority being non-bank.
Though the platform operates online, Gugelman said the geographic focus will be on Europe, the Middle East and Asia. Tradeteq currently operates out of London, and is planning to open an office in Singapore as well.
Unlike retail marketplaces like Mintos, which lessor 1pm recently joined, Tradeteq is specifically aimed at institutional investor.
Gugelman and co-founder Nils Behling, chief financial officer, come from a career in loan distribution, starting at Bank of America Merrill Lynch. They set up Tradeteq to drive down the barriers they met while working as asset managers at Trafigura and at their own firm, Thames Path Capital.
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By GlobalData“What you need … is a full-fledged infrastructure that includes reconciliation tools, workflow management and also credit analytics, in order to create credit transparency,” Gugelman told Leasing Life.
“It also includes automation of investment delivery … All of that is what we provide. We could not find it anywhere in the market, and that is why we started Tradeteq,” he said, adding that reception has been “overwhelming”.
In a statement, Behling added: “We see tremendous demand for trade finance assets on the institutional investor side, but actual volumes traded are still extremely small.
“Tradeteq provides the first integrated technology solution for origination, distribution, due diligence, execution, and management of trade finance investments.”
According to Tradeteq, some $130m of assets spanning seven jurisdiction have been processed through the platform during the pilot phase.
We.trade, another platform that uses online technology – in this case, blockchain – to streamline trade finance, is expected to launch in Q2 2018, backed by a consortium of European banks.
