Banking

Trends and Challenges Facing the Banking Sector:

  • The banking sector requires standardization of international banking and commercial practice procedures to obtain increased efficiency and to ensure that parties to transactions are operating under the same assumptions to increase the likelihood of payment.
  • The banking sector needs decreased costs to international trade transactions.
  • Business needs a global set of forfeiting rules for both primary and secondary markets.

USCIB’s Response:

  • Promote standardization of international banking and commercial practices, which helps policymakers and standard-setters put programs and regulations in place that enhance business practices around the world.
  • USCIB, through the ICC Banking Commission, aims to overhaul the rules in different fields, such as international standard banking practice and forfeiting, as well as in traditional trade services, open account and supply chain financing, global regulation, legal and compliance issues and risk and asset management.
  • Ensure members have greater clarity and understanding of current practices by promoting the adoption and integration of the ICC’s Uniform Rules for Demand Guarantees (URDG), as well as the Uniform Customs and Practice for Documentary Credits (UCP 600).
  • Facilitates the rapid settlement of disputes arising in banking by working through ICC to administer the ICC Rules for Documentary Instruments Dispute Resolution Expertise.
  • Responds to member inquiries regarding suspected cases of attempted financial fraud using falsified or illegitimate financial instruments or banking practices.

Magnifying Your Voice with USCIB:

  • USCIB is the only U.S. business association formally affiliated with the world’s three largest business organizations where we work with business leaders across the globe to extend our reach to influence policymakers in key international markets to American business
  • Build consensus with like-minded industry peers and participate in off-the-record briefings with policymakers both home and abroad.

USCIB on LinkedIn

Positions and Statements

USCIB Gives Feedback on OECD New Approach to Economic Challenges Project (1/22/2015) - Authors of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development’s “New Approach to Economic Challenges” report met with USCIB and member…
Global Trade Set to Benefit From ICC Trade Register Report (6/19/2014) - It has long been anecdotally known that trade finance is a low risk for lenders. That claim now has a…

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News Stories

USCIB Leads in Preparations for Upcoming China Meetings at OECD (4/27/2021) - USCIB members and staff played major roles in the April 23 China Expert Group’s preliminary meeting to preview and discuss…
USCIB Banking Committee Welcomes New Chair: Bank of America’s Geoff Brady (11/11/2020) - USCIB is pleased to announce the appointment of USCIB member Geoff Brady of Bank of America as new chair of…

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Press Releases

Now Available in USCIB International Bookstore: Uniform Rules for Bank Payment Obligations (6/13/2013) - New York, N.Y., June 13, 2013 – Uniform Rules for Bank Payment Obligations (BPOs), a 21st-century standard in supply-chain finance…
New Report Proves Trade Finance Is Low-Risk, Asks Regulators and G20 to Unlock Trade (10/26/2011) - Beijing and New York, N.Y., October 26, 2011 –The rules set by bank regulators impose unwarranted capital requirements that choke…

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Op-Eds and Speeches

SMEs Face Significant Financing Gap (7/22/2013) - Speaking at the World Trade Organization’s annual “aid-for-trade” review earlier this month, a representative of the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC)…
The Future of Trade Finance: Outlook 2011 (5/23/2011) - As 2009 ended, we viewed the global economy – and its lifeblood, trade – through the prism of cautious optimism.…

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Chair

Geoff Brady
Head of Global Trade and Supply Chain Finance
Bank of America

Staff

Christopher Olsen
Policy Manager, Regulation and Trade
202-617-3156 or colsen@uscib.org

 

 

USCIB Leads in Preparations for Upcoming China Meetings at OECD

USCIB members and staff played leading roles in the April 23 China Expert Group’s preliminary meeting to preview and discuss Business at OECD (BIAC) presentations that will be made at the kick-off session of the OECD’s Informal Reflection Group on China in May. During the preliminary meeting, BIAC experts, including USCIB Senior Advisor Shaun Donnelly and Dell’s Eva Hampl (formerly USCIB and now a Vice Chair of BIAC’s China group), advanced key points that BIAC will emphasize including on state-owned enterprises (SOEs), investment, innovation and digitalization, and climate neutrality.

With regards to SOEs, Donnelly and others emphasized the importance of including provisions on SOEs in future investment and trade agreements, updating World Trade Organization (WTO) rules on subsidies, drawing China into multilateral consensus on export and development finance, as well as engaging China to reduce excess capacity in steel and rejoin the Global Forum on Steel Excess Capacity. The investment dialogue between China and the OECD should also be intensified and made more substantive, rather than political, according to Donnelly. Updating the investment policy review of China is also critical since the last review was done in 2008.

On innovation and digitalization, Donnelly noted the need to review efforts to onshore production in the name of supply chain resiliency, to study global value chains to ensure that policies are driven by OECD-generated facts and not politics and protectionism, to foster cooperation on IT and Artificial Intelligence (AI) information-sharing and standards’ development, engaging China on implementation and dissemination of AI principles and policies, as well as monitoring and acting on China’s development of virtual currency along with its impact on major currencies.

“Engaging China on harmonizing carbon pricing and emission trading schemes, pushing China more toward sustainable investment policies at home and abroad (such as their Belt and Road projects use of fossil fuels) and continuing to press for mitigation and strong environmental commitments from China is key,” said Donnelly.

Donnelly also led a discussion urging BIAC, as a business forum, to press the OECD and its member governments for substantive reform and results in its engagement with China and to worry less about protocol and diplomatic formalities.

“It was great to have USCIB and American business actively involved in BIAC’s preparations for this important China strategy session at the OECD,” added Donnelly.  “With a new Secretary General coming to OECD in June, a new U.S. Administration looking to play a leadership role at the OECD, and steadily growing concerns around the world about some of China’s policies and practices, it’s vital that Business at OECD and its American members focus on these issues of how the OECD can play a useful role with China.”

Donnelly added: “Eva Hampl from Dell did a great job leading Friday’s discussion on the innovation and digitalization issues.  She and I look forward to our roles as BIAC lead speakers in the session with the OECD China group.  It was also great to see several USCIB members logging on for the BIAC discussion, confirming that China issues, broadly defined, remain important priorities for USCIB and its broad, cross-sectoral membership.”

If members have issues, questions or suggestions related to this BIAC and OECD effort on China, please contact Allice Slayton Clark (asclark@uscib.org).

USCIB Banking Committee Welcomes New Chair: Bank of America’s Geoff Brady

Geoff Brady
Photo credit: Bank of America

USCIB is pleased to announce the appointment of USCIB member Geoff Brady of Bank of America as new chair of the USCIB Banking Committee. Brady, who is head of global trade and supply chain finance at Bank of America, succeeds Michael Quinn of JPMorgan Chase.

According to USCIB Senior Director for Trade, Investment and Financial Services Eva Hampl, USCIB’s Banking Committee works to increase efficiency and decrease the cost of international trade transactions by promoting the standardization of international banking procedures—primarily by providing input into the global work of the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC).

“We look forward to Bank of America’s active participation in this important area,” said USCIB President and CEO Peter Robinson. “We are confident in Geoff’s leadership in the ongoing work of the Committee, including ensuring strong U.S. representation in the ICC Banking Commission and ICC’s work to develop global rules and facilitate access to trade finance.”

USCIB Calls for International Financial Support for At-Risk Businesses, Workers in Developing Countries Impacted by COVID

April 23, 2020 – As the continuing health consequences of the devastating COVID-19 pandemic are being felt across the globe, no country has been spared, but the impacts are particularly acute in vulnerable middle- and lower-income countries.

The scale and scope of the COVID-19 pandemic requires that all stakeholders come together to develop broad-based approaches to this pandemic crisis. Critically, without immediate support from international development finance institutions, the ability of vulnerable countries to reopen and resume economic activity once the pandemic is contained and addressed, will be severely compromised.

As part of the international response to address the health, economic and social crisis from this pandemic, the G-20 countries, including the G-20 Finance Ministers, have coordinated closely with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank Group and regional development banks, to mobilize resources to address urgent needs.

We call upon the G-20 and leadership of the international financial institutions to support those countries requiring assistance for the health care assets to combat the COVID-19 pandemic.

Additionally, we urge these countries and institutions to allocate necessary resources for:

  1. sufficient funds for governments to offer credit facilities to maintain and avoid the liquidation of businesses in export sectors vital to the economies of these vulnerable countries,
  2. funding to governments to support functioning social protection programs, including income to meet the basic needs of their work force so that they can be supported while they wait to resume their jobs once businesses can be reopened, and
  3. technical and financial support necessary for the export and other economic sectors in these countries so that workplaces can resume operation safely taking into account strategies to mitigate COVID-19 risk.

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USCIB’s Donnelly Retires; Will Take on a Consulting Role 

Shaun Donnelly

Vice President for Investment Policy and Financial Services Shaun Donnelly is retiring April 3 after eight and half years at USCIB.

Donnelly came to USCIB in 2011, after an impressive 36-year career as a Department of State Foreign Service Officer followed by shorter stints at two other leading Washington trade associations. Throughout his time at USCIB, Donnelly has been a leading voice for the U.S. and international business communities on a wide range of investment policy issues, speaking out forcefully and publicly, as well as privately, to the U.S. Administration, Congress and in international fora, from the OECD and World Trade Organization (WTO) to the UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) and the UN Commission on International Trade Law (UNCITRAL).

Donnelly has also been a sought-after and a provocative speaker at investment conferences and seminars around Washington and around the globe.  But most importantly, Donnelly has always been willing and able to put his experience, his expertise and his rolodex to use to assist USCIB members, collectively and individually.

“It has been a real privilege to have Shaun as part of the USCIB team, and I’m delighted that he will continue on in an advisory role,” said USCIB President and CEO Peter Robinson. “Shaun is a global regulatory diplomat par excellence, never hesitating to stand up for private sector interests in a forceful, rational and compelling way.”

In the State Department’s Foreign Service, Donnelly served eight years as a Deputy Assistant Secretary of State (DAS) in the Bureau of Economic and Business Affairs, at various times leading policy on Trade, Energy and Economic sanctions.  For almost five of those years he was the Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary, the Department’s #3 economic policy official. Donnelly also served as U.S. Ambassador to Sri Lanka and Maldives and as Deputy Ambassador to Tunisia and Mali. In his final U.S. government assignment, Donnelly was detailed to the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) as Assistant USTR in charge of Europe and the Middle East, running USTR’s largest regional office.  He retired from the Foreign Service with the personal rank of Career Minister, roughly equivalent to that of three-star general.

“Simply put, it’s time,” Donnelly said.  “It’s been a great run and I have really appreciated the opportunity to work with so many great colleagues at USCIB and in our member companies.”

For us at USCIB, the good news is that Donnelly has agreed to stay on in a consulting role, serving as a senior advisor to Robinson and USCIB Senior Vice President for Policy and Government Affairs Rob Mulligan, as well as to take on a few special projects.

“I look forward to staying involved behind the scenes with USCIB and helping where I can,” said Donnelly. “It’s a great organization and there is still a lot of important, challenging work to do.”

2017 USCIB International Leadership Award Dinner

USCIB is delighted to honor Ajay Banga, president and chief executive officer of MasterCard. Each year this gala event attracts several hundred industry leaders, government officials and members of the diplomatic community to celebrate open markets and the recipient of USCIB’s highest honor.

Established in 1980, USCIB’s International Leadership Award is presented to a senior business executive who has made significant policy contributions to world trade and investment, and to improving the global competitive framework in which American business operates. Join us for what will be a truly memorable evening!

USCIB Weighs in With Administration on Trade Deficits

With the Trump administration seeking to reorient U.S. trade policy toward bilateral agreements, bilateral trade deficits have been put forward as a marker of the health — or lack thereof — of U.S. commercial relations with a given country. USCIB has taken up this issue in a recent statement to the Department of Commerce.

In its statement, USCIB said: “On the specific issue of trade deficits, particularly bilateral deficits (or surpluses) with individual countries, USCIB supports the view of most mainstream economists, who are convinced that trade deficits are a product of broader macroeconomic factors, not trade policy, and that the trade balance should not be viewed as a straightforward indicator of a country’s economic health. While it is useful to address trade barriers that impede access for U.S. goods and services exporters to specific markets, we should not set up bilateral trade balances as the metric of successful trade policies.”

Furthermore, the USCIB statement argued for greater attention to trade in services, not just goods, in any analysis of trade balances. “In the United States, services account for almost 80% of GDP, and services jobs account for more than 80% of private sector employment,” USCIB said. “Accordingly, a trade policy focused solely on trade deficits in manufacturing is misleading.”

The Commerce Department is expected to hold hearings on trade deficits later this week.

New Compliance Guide for Trade Transactions Published

The International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) Banking Commission, along with partners, the Wolfsberg Group and the Bankers Association for Finance and Trade (BAFT) recently announced the publication of a revised guidance document on Trade Finance Principles. This broader industry edition now addresses the due diligence required by global and regional financial institutions of all sizes in the financing of international trade.

The document was updated to reflect the growing regulatory expectations, as well as the more stringent application of existing regulations faced by the industry today. The collaborative effort will help standardize the practice of financial crimes compliance for trade transactions.

The publication of this document is the culmination of more than two years of work undertaken by the organizations and their members.

“In keeping with the traditional work of the ICC Banking Commission, this guidance on sound financial crimes risk management for the traditional trade products follows in the steps of the UCP, URC etc. in setting standards by which banks should conduct their trade business and to provide a sound basis for the continuation of the finance of international trade by banks, said Olivier Paul, head of policy of the ICC Banking Commission.

You can download the paper here.

6th Supply Chain Finance Summit

The Supply Chain Finance Summit is an annual meeting of CFOs, Corporate credit and risk managers, corporate treasurers, import managers and trade specialists, bankers, insurers, consultants and vendors, promoting the discussion and assessment of issues affecting supply chain finance.

In its sixth edition, and for the first time in London, the ICC Academy’s Supply Chain Finance Summit will provide a unique opportunity to learn from experienced corporations and bankers about their visions and strategies in the new area of supply chain finance. You can expect insight and commentary on a wide range of issues: streamlining of trade finance operations, the changing landscape from the BPO perspective, the impact of the regulatory environment, dealing with logistical hurdles, and more.

The Summit will be divided into two streams with themes that focus on the corporate and banking sector. Nevertheless, all guests will be brought together in social and networking events. For this year, organizers will offer various new formats of discussions and greater opportunities to engage in the debates. Save the date and be among the firsts, who will experience a Night Owl Session in trade finance, test your knowledge in SCF definitions, and more.