LBBW registers for Trade Services Utility

Published on 17 September 2008
Left to right: Urs Kern, Senior Manager, Trade Europe, Middle East & Africa, SWIFT. Verena Rothmaier, Executive Vice President, Landesbank Baden-Württemberg. Ralf Dieringer, Vice President, IT/Organisation, Landesbank Baden-Württemberg. Jürgen Marstatt, Senior Account Director, Central & Eastern Europe, SWIFT
Landesbank Baden-Württemberg (LBBW) has registered its BIC to SWIFT’s Trade Services Utility (TSU). This step as LBBW is developing its international organisation and setting up new branches and representative offices.

“Our aim is to strengthen and deepen the relationship we have with our corporate clients and therefore we need to provide state-of-the-art technology. We expect TSU will become state-of-the-art in future and may replace the letter of credit (LC) business as it exists at the moment,” says Verena Rothmaier, Executive Vice President, Head of International Business (East), LBBW.

As many banks fear disintermediation as use of LCs decreases and companies move to open account, banks are seeking other ways of providing value in the trade finance business. Rothmaier says: “I believe that security will always be necessary in trade finance. Our next step is to pilot the TSU with some of our close customers.”

 Ralf Dieringer, Vice President, IT Payment Solutions at LBBW , also noted that the TSU will help automation within the banking environment.