The International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) and Finastra have announced Ecuador as the first market in which they will run the pilot for their trade funding marketplace (announced earlier this year). The ICC TRADECOMM™ marketplace, powered by Finastra, aims to reduce trade finance barriers for SMEs and enable all parties to benefit from improvements in matching supply and demand, ultimately decreasing the global $1.5 trillion dollar trade finance gap.

ICC Secretary General, John W.H. Denton AO said, “We are incredibly pleased to announce Ecuador as the first pilot market for ICC TRADECOMM. We look forward to working with our colleagues at Finastra and on the ground in Quito to provide SMEs with short-term liquidity for their trade operations. At a time when our global trade system remains fractured, it’s incumbent upon business leaders and international organizations to equip SMEs with the required solutions and funding to build back their activity to pre-pandemic levels. Given that SMEs make up 99% of Ecuador’s businesses, we believe that ICC TRADECOMM will have a transformational impact on local businesses throughout the country.”

During the pilot, bank and non-bank financers are given the opportunity to finance local SME invoices via a risk-based approach. The focus will be on engaging with early adopters in region to support local platform development, with the goal being to bring the solution to all SMEs and financers there.

Carlos Zaldumbide, General Secretary of ICC Ecuador said, “We are so excited to be able to support this essential initiative to help towards reducing the growing trade finance gap for SMEs in our country and around the world. Ecuador is well placed for the pilot as we have a growing economy supported by a strong SME backbone. We are already in the process of bringing important e-invoicing initiatives to our country and this will be a tremendous complementary initiative that could really make a difference.”

Simon Paris, CEO at Finastra said, “We all have an obligation to redefine finance for good and to help drive global economic equality of opportunity. In orchestrating this ecosystem with the ICC, we expect to build a financing marketplace that will provide support to SMEs which desperately need access to a broader set of alternative financing resources. Ecuador is a growing, emerging market and we hope the pilot will demonstrate how we can help to facilitate significant levels of trade financing for local organizations, creating the showcase that will then allow ICC TRADECOMM to enable more markets where we could potentially facilitate billions of dollars in trade.”

New markets for additional pilots have already been identified and will be revealed soon.