ABSTRACT

International trade lies at the heart of a country’s development and prosperity. It serves as a key driver for economic growth, enhanced productivity and efficiency, improved access to resources, market diversification, innovation and technological advancement, increased consumer benefits, and diplomatic relations and peace. Given its profound impact on the economy, it becomes imperative for countries to ensure its effective monitoring in accordance with the national and global regulatory framework. To accomplish this, they employ various agencies responsible for managing, monitoring, and regulating trade activities, resulting in the utilization of multiple information systems that are disparate and operate in silos. These systems are employed to manage and monitor various aspects of trade, such as the issuance of export/import bills, administration of export incentives, facilitation of duty drawback and other incentives, and monitoring of foreign exchange inflows and outflows related to trade, among others.

That being said, the existence of non-integrated or partially integrated systems poses several challenges for both the agencies and the country as a whole. This includes inefficient information exchange between multiple systems, lack of collaboration and communication, limited visibility and reporting capabilities, higher operational costs, inconsistent customer experience, security and data integrity risks, as well as limitations in scalability and adaptability.

In this white paper, we will explore how end-to-end integration of information systems can help a country’s core trade regulator, i.e., central banking institutions, deal with challenges in cross-border trade and execute trade finance transactions seamlessly.