ICC

Financing for Smaller Firms

Financing for Smaller Firms

Many of the ICC recommendations involve updating antiquated processes. Trade finance transactions are unnecessarily complex with, as the report shows clearly, complicated shuffling of mostly paper documentation. Firms attempting to work in multiple markets also face regulatory disconnects with unclear processes. To add to the mix, there are three primary product categories for trade financing with different demands and requirements for each: documentary business, supplier-side financing, and buyer-led financing. While unraveling these complex processes would be helpful, with significant gains available, it does not go far enough in providing basic financing to the millions of MSMEs that are currently underserved by the market. What is needed is a new approach that leverages a range of new technologies to reconceptualize the way that small businesses are evaluated and pull in new financing providers. By starting with an MSME-first approach, it is possible to reimagine the provision of capital and start to unlock and unleash the potential trapped inside small firms. The ICC report (full disclaimer—I was part of the conceptual team to help develop recommendations) begins to sketch out some of the conditions for a new ecosystem to support financing for MSMEs in the near term.