Internet Giants Are Transforming Trade

©iStock/KeremYucel

While the Internet giants such as eBay, Amazon and Alibaba are transforming trade, global small businesses are doing their best at making it work too.  But the biggest barrier to a large-scale increase in SME cross-border trade is lack of finance.

E-commerce platforms are shrinking the world. Research by eBay estimates that whereas a 10% increase in distance between two trading partners reduced conventional trade by 18%, this number reduces to only 3% over the eBay marketplace. 

The question that begs to be asked is:  What are banks doing to review their own SME and trade finance models to make more funds available for international trade.  This will help SMEs transform their global trade activities too.

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