BAFT Publishes Industry Briefing: Intraday Liquidity Management in Europe

The BAFT Europe Council Intraday Liquidity Working Group today released an Industry Briefing on Intraday Liquidity Management in Europe.

The BAFT Europe Council Intraday Liquidity Working Group today released an Industry Briefing on Intraday Liquidity Management in Europe. The working group, led by Sandra Laielli van Scherpenzeel at UBS Switzerland AG, formed in September 2017 to examine the increasing importance of intraday liquidity in the daily routine of transaction bankers.

Working Group members, in conjunction with FImetrix, surveyed banks in Europe in order to assess how they had reacted to the market and regulatory pressure of monitoring and reporting on intraday liquidity positions. The survey focused on five key areas:

• Management of intraday liquidity lines and facilities
• Charging for intraday liquidity usage and related services
• Current and future usage of liquidity monitoring tools
• Investments in liquidity monitoring and forecasting
• Deposit management

Working Group members reviewed the survey findings in detail and added the expertise of their financial institutions to the analysis to provide a more granular interpretation of the survey findings in a meaningful market context. The survey results, subsequent dialogue among Working Group members and the broader BAFT Europe Council are captured in the Industry Briefing.

The Industry Briefing is available for all BAFT members and can be found in the Library of Documents under White Papers.

BAFT today announced the release of an updated New York law Master Participation Agreement (MPA). The original was drafted more than 10 years ago, and serves as the industry standard for secondary market transactions to facilitate the buying and selling of trade finance-related assets globally.

BAFT, together with ITFA (International Trade and Forfaiting Association), put together a working group of experts to review the existing forms and identify necessary changes based on current market practice. International law firm, Sullivan & Worcester, drafted the modernized New York law MPA form and associated usage guidelines.

The agreement continues to help standardize documentation for trade finance transactions and facilitates the communication around trade finance assets between financial institutions, investors of all types and government bodies globally.

“The revisions to the BAFT MPA continue our efforts to standardize industry documentation, facilitate better transaction efficiency and provide greater consistency,” said Tod Burwell, president and CEO of BAFT.

The updated MPA covers secondary market activities  related to  various types of  trade assets. The document is free for BAFT members and available for purchase for nonmembers. Read More.

BAFT joined with others in the industry to file a letter supporting BSA reform. Read the letter here.

BAFT released technical as well as business best practices for a digital ledger payment commitment (DLPC). The documents identify industry-wide specifications for a DLPC, enabling digitization of trade finance instruments for processing on a DLT platform and interoperability among platforms.

BAFT Releases Best Practices for Digital Ledger Payment Commitments

WASHINGTON – BAFT, the leading global trade association for transaction banking, today released technical as well as business best practices for a digital ledger payment commitment (DLPC).  A DLPC is a core component of all trade finance instruments involving a promise to pay that is registered on distributed ledger technology (DLT) platform built to conduct international trade.  The documents identify industry-wide specifications for a DLPC, enabling digitization of trade finance instruments for processing on a DLT platform and interoperability among platforms.

The best practices were developed by BAFT’s Digital Ledger Payment Commitment Working Group, which formed in 2016 at the direction of BAFT’s Innovation Council. The working group consists of representatives from 15 large global banks, business consultant firms, law firms, trade finance solution providers, and fintech companies.

“The BAFT Distributed Ledger Payment Commitment specifications offer a standardized solution for companies to register digital representations of payment commitments on a distributed ledger,” said Samantha Pelosi, Senior Vice President, Payments and Innovation of BAFT.  “It is a building block for instruments like drafts, bills of exchange, letters of credit, bank payment obligations and banker’s acceptances. We encourage the industry to incorporate these specifications into DLT platforms for international trade to facilitate interoperability between the multiple trade solutions being developed to leverage the benefits inherent in DLT.”

Recognizing that the industry is early in its transition from a paper-based process to a DLT-based process for engaging in trade finance, BAFT is releasing these best practices for trial use and seeking feedback from early adopters. It hopes to incorporate that feedback in future versions of the DLPC specifications as they evolve into industry standards.

The Technical Best Practices and Business Best Practices are available for industry review at www.baft.org.