Banks

Geneva is the world banking centre for commodity and trade finance.

BCGE, BCP, BCV, Crédit Agricole, Crédit Suisse, ING, Société Générale and UBS all have their headquarters or offices in Geneva or Lausanne for this business. In addition to the classical commodity and trade finance products, such as transactional financing, pre-export finance, inventory finance, country risk coverage, etc. banks in the Lemanic Region offer a large range of products for the shipping industry.

Historically very strong in short-term financing, Geneva banks have in recent years developed medium and long-term structured financing.

A particular strength of the Geneva banks is their specialisation in Emerging Markets, such as Russia, ex-CIS, Africa and South America.

Commodity trade finance departments are currently working on the testing and introduction of new advances such as distributed ledger technology.

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