Standard Chartered’s Future of Trade: Resilience report reveals how 1,200 corporates across 17 markets are navigating one of global trade’s most turbulent decades. From AI and tariffs to supply chain realignment and digital treasury transformation, businesses are adopting multi-pronged strategies to build resilience, manage rising costs, and seize opportunities across emerging trade corridors.

The Commonwealth launches a Model Law on Digital Trade to modernise trade rules, boost competitiveness, and unlock $1.2 trillion in growth by 2026.

Youth-led protests are reshaping politics and impacting economies across emerging markets, with unrest spreading from Nepal to Kenya, Indonesia, to Mongolia. Driven by inequality, corruption, and exclusion, these movements mobilise rapidly through digital platforms and resist blunt state repression. As demographic shifts intensify, recurring protest cycles are set to become structural features of politics, testing resilience and demanding forward-looking strategies from policymakers and businesses alike.

For centuries, merchants have relied on bills of lading and other trade documents whose value rests on the goods they represent and the enforceability of the rights they embody. As these instruments move from paper to digital form, attention has turned to whether these electronic trade documents are at risk in jurisdictions that have not adopted digitally enabling legislation like the UNCITRAL Model Law on Electronic Transferable Records (MLETR). 

Global trade has shown resilience in 2025 despite growing challenges from tariff escalation and policy uncertainty, according to the World Trade Organisation’s latest “Global Trade Outlook and Statistics Update: October 2025” released on 7th October.

To be clear: factoring and supply chain finance (SCF, or reverse factoring) are not inherently problematic. Indeed, they are indispensable instruments of global commerce. From Mittelstand manufacturers in Germany to electronics exporters in Shenzhen, companies rely on these techniques to smooth cash flow, fund working capital, and underpin domestic and cross-border trade.

Today, global trade faces high volatility and regulatory scrutiny. To help institutions navigate these challenges, the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) Trade Register serves as the foundation of risk assessment.

In a wide-ranging conversation at Sibos 2025 that touched on everything from digital currencies to cybersecurity threats, State Bank of India (SBI) Chairperson Challa Sreenivasulu Setty offered insights into how India’s largest bank is navigating the rapidly evolving financial technology landscape while maintaining customer trust at its core in the session “View from the Top” in conversation with Megha Kansal of McKinsey & Company.

🔥 #hottopicsofsibos, with Trade Treasury Payments (TTP)’s Joy Macknight featuring Sofia Hammoucha, Global Head of Trade and Working Capital at Standard Chartered.

TTP spoke to her about how banks and corporates cope with the uncertainty in global trade relations and the meaning of this year’s Sibos theme “The next frontiers in global finance”.