•  
• Tweet
•  
•        Print
•  
•         Track Keywords
•  
• 

Bailey McCann, Opalesque New York:

Singapore-based NR Capital has launched with a new take on trade finance. The firm, which focuses on small to medium-sized enterprises in the bulk commodities market has created a fund available to accredited investors who want exposure to asset-backed deals of $1-15 million. The fund launched in April and made its first capital commitments in May.

"Anyone doing transactions under $15 million is finding it harder to get trade financing from traditional banks," says NR Capital CEO Tom James in an interview with Opalesque. "Banks aren't in this space because of regulation. But, it's created a 1 trillion funding gap. So in many ways, we've become the biggest referral customer for banks. They recognize that there is a need for this type of financing."

Supporting these transactions using private capital isn't easy. The team at NR has created a holistic technology platform on par with a large banking operation in order to support asset verification/control, KYC, AML, and the growing host of transaction reporting requirements necessary for trade finance deals to go through. James says that the technology component is critical to helping them scale and also for maintaining transaction security.

"Internally we're fully digitized, it has helped us scale," James adds. "We think there is a big automation opportunity within trade finance and the commodities market. It will take time to get there, but there are many ef......................

To view our full article Click here