For many banks, Trade Finance is a sizeable contributor to both their Fee and (NII) Net Interest Incomes. From simple products like Letters of Credits and SBLCs, to complex Structured Trade Finance products – banks play a key role in greasing the cogs of the international trade machine. The reason these products exist is two-fold. Firstly, it is about financial leverage in the form of short-term working capital. But more than that – it is about creating trust.

 Imagine a scenario where a small company is importing a million dollars’ worth of goods for local distribution. A signature mismatch in one of the shipping or trade financing documents is raised as an exception and the whole transactions gets delayed. The goods sit at the port incurring demurrage and other charges, the supply chain is disrupted, the distributors don’t have the goods that they have pre-sold, the financing charges continue to ramp up and a profitable trade has now turned into a nightmare!

Under eIDAS, the EU aims to facilitate cross-border digital transactions and pave the way for a Digital Single Market. Qualified electronic signatures and seals play a decisive role with this goal. Thanks to eIDAS, users can obtain both as a service via remote signing/sealing as well. How do users benefit from it? And what do trust service providers need to implement?

We often talk about the benefits of e-signatures for businesses. There are some that apply to every organization, such as the cost and efficiency benefits, but there are certain industries that experience more advantages than others from the switch to e-signatures.

eIDAS has helped herald a new era of e-signing for businesses operating across Europe. E-signatures provide a fast, secure, efficient and cost-effective alternative to paper signing and the eIDAS regulation ensures legal certainty across the EU with its requirements for Basic, Advanced and Qualified e-signatures.

Since the beginning of 2018, PSD2 or the 2nd Payment Services Directive is national law in all EU member states. Some countries have implemented the new directive early on, such as Germany and the UK, but for some it is still work in progress today.

In our recent blog post series about the eIDAS regulation, we have addressed local signing and the difference with remote signing (or server signing), which relies on a Trust Service Provider (TSP) to remotely generate and manage the signing keys on the signatory’s behalf.

The anonymity provided by some blockchains is one of the largest attractions about this technology. For business adoption though identity on and off the chain is crucial, legally and logistically. On an entirely distributed, decentralized blockchain such as Bitcoin or Ethereum, this anonymity serves a purpose and encourages individual use. For business adoption however it poses problems.

In the context of a Digital Single Market in Europe, the need for secure electronic transactions across member states is a big topic for banking and financial services players. Electronic ID and trust services are key compliance factors for identification and authentication after recent regulatory updates such as PSD2 or AMLD4.