The managing director of non-bank provider of domestic, import, and export trade finance products, ExWorks, says his firm can help companies finance their supply chains even when they have insufficient balance sheet strength to open letters of credit (L/Cs).

Christopher Ash says the firm can step in and bridge the gap between what a bank would do and what an exporter needs to fulfil orders.

Additional to banksAsh says that ExWorks is not negating the role of the banks. Rather, he says that providers such as ExWorks act as partners or in addition to existing banks with the aim of ironing out seasonality in the business cycle.

The ExWorks director says that clients using his firm's services can employ L/Cs, including standby L/Cs and revolving L/Cs on repeat type transactions and usance on the receivables side.

The client is then in a position to extend more credit to their customer and, by structuring transactions, additional costs can be mitigated too according to Ash.

Sophisticated solutions

As an example, he says receivables streams can be discounted either straight from the receivables themselves, or from the L/C by discounting the usance period.

Ash says ExWorks provides a range of sophisticated and flexible solutions as no one solution fits all cases.

This article represents the views of the author and not necessarily those of the ICC or Coastline Solutions.