Welcome to tradefinance.news

We are launching tradefinance.news because the trade finance media landscape is broken, and nobody seems to be fixing it.

Here is what we mean.

The problem

If you work in trade finance — whether you are structuring LCs at a commodity trader, reviewing documents at a bank, or building technology for the space — you already know: finding good, practitioner-relevant content is unreasonably hard.

The industry publications are either paywalled into oblivion, drowning in sponsored content, or writing for an audience that has never actually had to argue with a bank about whether "CERTIFICATE OF QUALITY" and "QUALITY CERTIFICATE" mean the same thing (they do, but good luck convincing the document checker at 11pm).

We think you deserve better.

What we are building

tradefinance.news is a free, independent newsletter built for the people who actually do trade finance.

Here is what you will get:

• Weekly Brief — Your Monday morning briefing on what actually matters. Deals, defaults, regulatory shifts, and the signals between the lines.
• The Discrepancy — Real LC rejection stories from the front lines, dissected with UCP 600 references. If you have ever received a discrepancy notice that made you question your career choices, this one is for you.
• Deep Dives — Long-form analysis on the forces reshaping the industry. Digitization, regulation, emerging corridors, and the players making moves.
• Hot Takes — Opinionated, practitioner-first commentary when the news warrants it.

What we are not

We are not neutral. We have opinions, and we state them clearly. We think that is more honest — and more useful — than pretending to be objective about things that matter.

We do not take sponsored content. When we write about a company or product, it is because we think you need to know about it, not because someone paid us.

We are not going to spam you. One email per week, with occasional extras when something big happens. You can unsubscribe anytime.

What comes next

Our first issue of The Discrepancy drops tomorrow. It involves a European commodity house, $2.3 million worth of urea, and a word-order dispute that should never have happened.

Subscribe below and you will not miss it.

We are glad you are here. Let us fix trade finance media together.

— Tamara