In 2021, Sri Lanka faced its worst economic & political crisis in over 70 years since independence. Major International banks started significantly cutting down their credit exposures on Sri Lankan banks while a few others imposed a total freeze on new Sri Lanka exposures.
Against this backdrop, one of the global conglomerates in the league of Fortune 500 approached us for financing and risk coverage solutions for Usance Letters of Credit issued by Sri Lankan state-owned banks for supply of petroleum products to Sri Lankan government under a term contract.
Over a period of next 12 months, we came up with a number of innovative solutions to confirm and discount about USD200Mn+ oil LC’s helping the client successfully fulfill their obligations under the term contract. That we also helped achieve savings of over USD700,000 in LC confirmation and discounting costs, was the icing on the cake for the client.
This assignment paved the way for us to become Sri Lanka country specialists and since then, we have helped a number of global companies exporting to Sri Lanka as well as importing companies in Sri Lanka with Letters of Credit Confirmation and Discounting/ Forfaiting Solutions.