United Bank of Africa (UBA) says its overhauled trade finance product offering will make it easier for intra-African traders to transact on a non-letter of credit (L/C) basis.

The bank says its remodelled AFRI-TRADE offers traders across Africa the opportunity to transact business through UBA without using a foreign correspondent bank.

Currency choices

Under the revamped product offering, payments for transactions and supporting documentation are routed through the bank's network across its subsidiaries in Africa or through some local participating banks in countries where UBA is not present.

With UBA acting as importer and exporter bank, businesses and individuals can pay in local currencies, euros or US dollars into a UBA account in a variety of ways.

Trading alternatives

Customers can still use L/Cs, but they could also use simpler alternatives such as straightforward cross-border funds transfers.

Traders will anyhow benefit from only having to make one currency transfer in a transaction under AFRI-TRADE, which is available to traders in 22 African countries.

This article represents the views of the author and not necessarily those of the ICC or any of the other partners in DC-PRO.