GUUD Wants To Close Trade Finance Gap The ‘RYTE’ Way

Singapore software firm GUUD launched a new financing technology platform Thursday (July 8), designed to help close what it calls a $1.5 trillion global trade finance gap.

The platform, RYTE, will simplify traditionally manual trade finance processes and connect business users to banks and alternative financiers. It will also give users greater access to funding options to meet their working capital needs, the company said in a news release.

“GUUD Finance, the financing arm of the GUUD Group, shares the Group’s vision to Trade for Good, and to enable all businesses, especially micro, small, and medium enterprises to become players in global trade by reducing red tape, eliminating middlemen and providing greater access to financial services,” the news release said.

GUUD says RYTE will streamline and standardize processes, allowing businesses to easily submit documents, “pulling the required digital data or documents through secured repositories like the Networked Trade Platform or from digital trade facilitation platforms operated by GUUD such as trade declaration services.”

Other benefits of the platform include fast turnarounds on inquiries, real-time status updates and secure auto population of form fields.

“The global trade finance gap is growing and estimated at around USD 1.5 trillion as of 2019 according to a survey by ADB, and this gap continues to grow,” GUUD CEO Desmond Loh said in the release.

“With the launch of RYTE, GUUD Finance hopes to be able to provide as many businesses as we can with options for financing that will help ease their cash flow strain, increase their working capital and allow them to expand their businesses easily.”

The launch of RYTE comes a few months after GUUD teamed up with another Singapore company — blockchain tech company MonetaGo — on an international financial transactional security project.

In a June interview with PYMNTS, Patrick Pfaff, director of commercial banking clients at the French bank ABN Amro, discussed the benefits of invoice financing and how it can help smaller traders meet their capital needs.