Automated, Simplified Software and Outsourcing Solutions to Ease Your Export Payment Transactions: Trade Technologies

The Silicon Review

“Founded in 1999, Trade Technologies is the global leader in trade payment document solutions with over 1,500 exporter customers using their software and services to process over $70 billion in transactions.”

Beginning within a small cotton trading company in Lubbock, Texas, which was exporting under letters of credit to several challenging markets, Trade Technologies has since transformed itself into the world’s largest provider of trade documentation software and services.
Trade Technologies provides patented, web-based software solutions and documentation preparation services that simplify and accelerate the international trade payment processes and documentation. Its solutions leverage the internet to drive workflow and process efficiencies throughout the global payment chain, resulting in an immediate and significant improvement in exporter profitability through accelerated payment, lower transaction costs and enhanced transaction reporting.

One of the unrelenting concerns even for an experienced exporter is the risk of not getting paid at all. The rules and requirements surrounding export trade tools are complex and often pose difficult compliance issues, which Trade Technologies’ software and services have resolved.

Coping with the change
Trade Technologies began offering their software solutions in 1999, and has constantly evolved to meet exporters’ needs. In 2002, the software was redesigned as a cloud-based platform and the company began offering technology-enabled-platform and outsourced services. In 2003, the first fully digital letter of credit presentations were made to major trade banks and in 2008, they received a patent on their software and business process.

In the last 14 years, Trade Technologies has grown into the largest global provider of software and outsourced services to manage letter of credit and other complex trade documentation. It now has 12 operations offices in the US, Asia and EMEA and processes almost $10 billion of international trade transactions per year. It has 1,500 exporter, bank
and freight forwarder customers and has completed almost 100,000 successful digital letter of credit presentations. Trade Technologies is currently presenting online to 49 exam offices of 17 global trade banks in 14 countries. It is the only company to have patented technology for fully automating the process of delivering original UCP 600 compliant letter of credit documents online to major trade banks.

Internet-powered software and services
Trade Technologies’ Platform automates the creation and delivery of complex trade payment documents, including automated mapping of data from SWIFT and other systems into fully customized trade document templates. The Platform supports letter of credit, documentary collection and open account terms. It features customizable work-flow for any industry or product that controls the creation, review, approval and distribution of global trade documents, a secure and reliable means of presenting electronic trade documents via the internet to banks, buyers, agents and third- parties worldwide, and a common content platform and documents repository and archive, including document revision history.

Solution Features:

Global team of trade professionals
Secure web-based technology
Connection to most major trade banks
Best-in-class processes
Low-cost, immediate implementation
Enhanced transaction reporting
24/7 audit-ready all-inclusive document/data storage

Benefits for Your Business:

Accelerates collection of international receivables
Reduces overhead, courier and discrepancy costs
Dramatically improves visibility and control of financial supply chain;and
Provides web-based alerts, reports and document archive.

Provisions:

Trade Technologies

Provides trade experts in local markets to manage trade trans- actions in real time and local language and culture
Offers a global footprint to enable multi-national companies to have a high level of consistent and localized process and results in all their global locations
Delivers best-in-class patented cloud technology to automate manual and paper processes:
Provides global visibility and control to regional and main office credit and treasury teams; and;
Enables connectivity and partnerships with the largest and most capable trade finance banks in the world.

Favoring exporter clients, big and small, all over the world
Trade Technologies has over 50 Fortune 500 customers including Toyota, Qualcomm, Baker Hughes, Halliburton, New Balance, GE, Bank of America, Standard Chartered Bank, Wells Fargo, Citi Bank and HSBC. The company’s global foot- print provides a unique ability to manage transactions in almost any location. For global multinationals, this enables a consistent predictable process at their most far flung locations, while the platform provides visibility and control to regional and corporate hubs.

The company’s outsourced services are ideal for large and small exporters selling under letters of credit, collections and open account terms. Many of the global commodities clientele prefer working with the Platform, which supports integration of the patented platform with their existing ERP or inventory management systems to automate trade documentation, provide cloud based visibility and collaboration and enable customized reporting and alerts. Additionally, Trade Technologies provides fully automated software solutions to global consumer products companies to manage the entire trade document supply chain from factories to customers.

Client speaks
Jed Jones from Trimble Europe BV, Netherlands shares his experience with Trade Technologies. “I have spent over 10 years as a shipping specialist working for a global high- tech company. Many of the company’s export orders ship under letter of credit payment terms, where the volume necessitates the outsourcing of the letter of credit process to a third party. In our case, throughout all this time, we have been fortunate enough to receive the invaluable help from Trade Technologies. Any- one with any experience of the letter of credit process will understand the high level of accuracy, efficiency and communication required to present a compliant set of documents to the bank. Trade Technologies succeeds in all these areas –the staff is not only an expert at what it does and interested in the subject, it is also friendly, enthusiastic and communicative. I greatly appreciate the support we’ve received over all these years and highly recommend the company to anyone requiring professional and dependable help.”

Knowing the executive

Kirk Lundburg, President and CEO: Bringing over 30 years of international corporate and technology legal and management experience to the company, Kirk is responsible for Trade Technologies’ business strategy, execution and results. Prior to joining Trade Technologies, Kirk was a partner at a leading venture finance and technology law firm Gunderson Dettmer. Before Gunderson Dettmer, he was the Vice President at Robert Half International Inc., a NYSE traded and international staffing company. Previously, Kirk practiced corporate and securities law with the international law firm, Latham & Watkins. Kirk received his JD from the University of Southern California and graduated with a BA in Finance from Iowa State University. He also serves on the company’s Board of Directors.