Year in Review

As the year comes to an end, we would like to express our gratitude for the tremendous support shown to myself and the entire MonetaGo team. In 2023, the fintech sector, and many others, faced significant challenges. Despite these headwinds, please allow me to highlight several achievements made by the MonetaGo team.

Our Secure Financing service is now live and accessible in 53 countries through partners, an increase of 29 from last year, and following our deployment on Swift it is available to financiers in over 200 countries via their global API gateway. One of my OKRs for next year is having us present in over 100 countries, excluding our Swift connectivity. Furthermore, we are proud to collaborate with global industry organisations such as ICC United Kingdom , ICC Germany e.V. , FCI , BAFT (Bankers Association for Finance and Trade) , Centre for Digital Trade & Innovation , ITFA and many more, with whom we have diverse engagements, including co-chairing the Fraud Working Group at ITFA , participating in driving conversations forward to develop and instil best practices for the global trade finance community.

This year, we have welcomed more partners to our business and are working closely with them to bring accessible fraud prevention to trade finance providers globally. We wish to express our gratitude to Conpend , efcom , tesselate , Lloyd's List Intelligence , S&P Global Market Intelligence , and a number of others in progress we can not yet mention for trusting us to augment your solutions to deliver fraud detection and prevention mechanisms to your customers. Moreover, this year we have seen the onboarding of 47 banks to the Secure Financing system, a substantial achievement. What we are building at MonetaGo is incredibly exciting - the world's largest and most inclusive fraud prevention network for trade.

The digitisation of trade will be a key theme for MonetaGo into the coming year. The latest trade finance gap, representing global unmet financing demand, is USD$2.5 trillion ( Asian Development Bank (ADB) , Sept 2023), up from USD$1.7 trillion in 2020. Developing and implementing measures to cure this deficit helping SMEs and developing economies to grow is incredibly important for a resilient global economy. Expect to hear more from us and key industry leaders on this topic throughout 2024.

Multilateral development banks and organisations, including Asian Development Bank (ADB) , African Export-Import Bank (Afreximbank) , EBRD and the SME Finance Forum, Managed by the IFC (International Finance Corporation) , play a vital role in the provision of trade finance to developing economies. Through them, we are proud to contribute to initiatives that will stimulate SME financing in multiple economies, with MonetaGo 's Secure Financing system serving as a backbone to help facilitate safer financing environments.

Notwithstanding the happy achievements mentioned, we have seen in 2023 several unfortunate blows to the #tradefinance #fintech space. It would be remiss not to acknowledge the grit and determination shown by those businesses and individuals over the course of many years. Though many have publicly used the word 'failure' when speaking of some companies, I and we vehemently disagree with this narrative. We should applaud everyone who has come and gone because every single company has, to some degree, moved the needle. Their contributions have been indelible, not only to the fintech ecosystem but also to the betterment of global #finance and #trade.

Looking forward, we are optimistic about the opportunities the coming year will bring for all of us, and for MonetaGo , continuing to set the global standard for #fraudprevention in trade finance. Thank you again to our team, board, mentors, supporters, and investors for another year of bettering the MonetaGo movement, with a special mention going to one in particular who sadly passed earlier this year - gone far too soon.

Lastly, please allow MonetaGo to extend our best wishes to everyone over the yearend festive period. Here's to a healthy, happy and safer 2024!?