Law Relating to Payment and Trade Finance Essay

Law Relating to Payment and Trade Finance - Essay Example Hitherto, investors and other traders who wanted to do cross border or international trading (import and export) had to go through stringent bureaucracies and processes that killed the enthusiasm of most of such investors and traders. Today, the situation is quite different as a lot more people are gaining the interest to go into international trading. The need to make cross border trade and commerce as flexible as possible not withstanding, there are certain basic regulations that remain unchanged and would perhaps remain unchanged for a very long time. One of such regulations is the mode of international trade financing and payment. Though the processes are not as stressful as before, international traders are still required to follow basic international trade financing systems that are governed by law. This write-up therefore seeks to examine the role of some of the most common international trade financing and payment methods in addressing the currency global credit crisis. What is international trade finance and payment? Organisation such as the International Monetary Fund and World Trade Organisation have devised laid down procedures and structures that need to be followed whenever trade and business transactions have to take place across borders. Such trade that take place across borders are referred to as international trade whereas the funding or financing of all forms of products, good and services that are involved in such international trades are referred to as international trade finance or simply put, trade finance. According to the Business Money (2011), â€Å"Trade Finance is the science that describes the management of money, banking, credit, investments and assets for international trade transactions.† This means that the financing of trade across borders is just more than giving out monies for goods that one wants to buy. Rather it reaches an extent where the entire process is described as management. Instead of just giving out money t o pay for goods and products, one has to device means and follow processes that ensure that the money is managed by taking the payment process through a couple of processes, involving institutions such as banks and insurance. It is therefore in the right direction that the Investopedia (2009) notes that â€Å"trade finance looks at banks, credit agencies, insurers, forfaiters, and any other person or institution who enables importers and exporters to trade across borders.† Discussion on the present Global Credit Crisis Closely related to the issue of international trade finance is the availability and access to flexible credit. This is because as mentioned already, trade finance goes beyond paying money in hand to a company to including the involvement of institutions such as banks and insurances. This means that issues on credit plays an important role on the success of world trade finance. However, it is common knowledge that the world has in times past suffered and even to day suffers from credit crisis that is not limited to any one country but the world as a whole. Broadly speaking, when a particular nation suffers a breakdown with its credit system, we say credit crisis has hit that country but when the situation expands to include almost all nations of the world – especially the giants like America, China and Germany, we say that there is a global credit crisis. Greewood (2011) explains that global credit cri