Advisory Services

Advisory Services Overview

Advisory Services we provide to our clients, which include deal structuring advisory services, due diligence services, and a group of mandatory Know Your Customer and Anti-Money Laundering services, are integral parts of our core business and are vitally important for our client’s success. The Deal Structuring advisory service provides to support our trade finance and project finance services. We take Deal Structuring very seriously and we are exceedingly good at it. While it is not a glamorous, marquis service, it is the segment of our core business where innovation and decades of accumulated expertise are combined to create deal structures that protect our clients against bad things.

When correctly conceived and executed, our deal structuring advisory service shields you from risk and positions you to make more profit on every deal. Know Your Customer KYC program in the United States obligates financial institutions to develop a Customer Identification Program or CIP to confirm the identity of customers or potential customers who intend to perform financial transactions with the institution. The Know Your Customer program, which was created pursuant to the US Patriot Act, is a financial regulation that targets financial institutions and financiers who do business internationally.

International Compliance Requirements Keep Growing

There is now a 100% certainty of increased due diligence requirements for anyone involved in international trade, trade finance, commodity finance, and project finance. Compliance is no longer a request. It has grown into a rather substantial legal obligation for those doing business internationally.

In addition to terrorism, which continues its inexorable march towards our shores, money laundering and drug trafficking also pose very real threats to the US. If you’re involved in international trade or trade finance, you will have to bear a disproportionate share of the world’s effort to combat these evils.

Expect the increasing demands for more and more Due Diligence along with demands to shift more and more of the workload and responsibility to alternative lenders. Additional compliance requirements will disproportionately impact small businesses involved in global trade or trade finance.

Due Diligence Advisory Services We Provide

We undertake a full complement of counter-party trade finance due diligence investigations as part of any trade financing transaction in which we or any client of Global Trade Funding is involved.

We understand the importance of thoroughly vetting every participant in a trade finance deal, thereby ensuring that no fraudulent or unworthy applicants filter into the day to day operations of the business of our business or that of our clients.

Complete, transparent investigations are essential for the success of any financing transaction, while also forming the basis for healthy, ongoing business relationships.

We also find that many clients aren’t prepared or equipped to follow this rapidly changing compliance environment. We perform these investigations as part of our client advisory service for every transaction in which we are involved.

Specifically, our trade finance due diligence services comply with all of the requirements of United States laws and government regulations, including the Patriot Act, the Anti-Money Laundering Act, the Counter Terrorism Financing Act, and also exceeds all of the Know Your Client (KYC) regulations.

We perform these procedures for all trade finance transactions in which we are involved.

Key Elements of Trade Finance Due Diligence

Properly undertaking due diligence investigations is a complex and time-consuming process that requires a great deal of training and experience. Many industry professionals undertake what they believe to be legitimate due diligence investigations by simply performing internet searches of names and phrases using internet search engines.

This produces unverified results that can be manipulated. They are also just as likely to produce fake news as anything else. That kind of shallow, ineffective investigation does not meet our standards. Real due diligence incorporates the key elements listed here to comply with anti-fraud and anti-money laundering regulations.

• To establish compliance with Anti-Money Laundering regulations.
• To establish the real identities of individuals involved in the transaction.
• Ascertain that the individuals possess the right qualities to carry out the duties expected of them.
• To check international fraud registers and criminal record bureaus.
• To establish the Ultimate Beneficial Owners (UBO) of the company or companies.
• To ascertain companies are correctly incorporated and their incorporation is current and not hindered by any legal action or pending actions.
• To ascertain that the people and the business involved have the financial capability to deliver what is required of them.
• To obtain a full understanding of the source and history of their investment funds.

Advisory Services Key Takeaways

Due Diligence investigations of counter-parties are essential for the success of any trade finance deal. They ensure clients comply with the law, and help to establish the basis for mutually beneficial business relationship. Knowing our customers is very important to us, so  performing client due diligence for every transaction in which we are involved has the desired effect of protecting our clients and ourselves.

Our Trade Finance Due Diligence advisory service performs all Trade Finance Due Diligence required by US law, including the Patriot Act, Anti-Money Laundering Act, Counter-Terrorism Financing Acts and Know Your Client (KYC) regulations. We perform these procedures for all transactions in which we are involved according to strict, consistent guidelines.