William Shakespeare once wrote, “Diseases desperate grown, by desperate appliance are relieved, or not at all.” The line appears in Hamlet, but it could just as easily have been penned for modern trade finance. It speaks to moments when incremental remedies no longer suffice, when problems have deepened to the point that only bold, structural intervention can arrest further decline. Trade finance today finds itself precisely at such a juncture.
For decades, the industry has been aware of its ailments. Paper-heavy processes, fragmented data, manual checking, opaque risk, inconsistent compliance interpretation, and a growing mismatch between global trade volumes and available financing capacity have been discussed endlessly. Numerous initiatives have sought to treat these conditions gently: digitising individual forms, scanning documents rather than re-engineering workflows, bolting new tools onto legacy core systems, or automating only the most superficial elements of document checking. These measures have delivered localised efficiencies, but they have not cured the disease. Instead, complexity has compounded quietly beneath the surface.
The result is an industry that functions, but only just. Banks struggle with thin margins and high operational cost. Corporates face delays, uncertainty, and uneven access to finance. Compliance teams are buried under false positives, while genuine risk hides in the noise. Meanwhile, trade volumes continue to rise, sanctions regimes proliferate, and regulators expect more precision, not less. In Shakespearean terms, the disease has “desperate grown”.
This is where digital trade finance must move beyond cosmetic digitalisation and embrace what might fairly be called “desperate appliances”, not reckless, but decisive. Technologies such as cloud-native trade platforms, structured data standards, artificial intelligence, and distributed ledger infrastructure are not merely tools for speed. Used properly, they allow the trade transaction itself to be re-imagined as a coherent digital process rather than a bundle of loosely aligned documents.
Take document examination as a case in point. Under traditional models, compliance with rules such as UCP 600 or practices such as ISBP 821 relies on human interpretation applied repeatedly to largely unstructured text. Even when systems assist, they often replicate human workflows rather than replace them. By contrast, AI-enabled platforms trained on rule logic, historical data, and contextual patterns can surface risk, inconsistency, and anomaly with far greater consistency. This does not remove human judgement; it re-focuses it where it matters most. The appliance is radical not because it is automated, but because it changes who does what, and when.
Similarly, the move towards electronic bills of lading and digitally negotiable instruments is not simply about speed of transmission. It addresses a deeper pathology: the disconnect between legal ownership, operational control, and financing risk. When title, endorsement, and presentation can be securely represented and transferred in a digital environment, banks gain confidence, corporates gain liquidity, and disputes rooted in lost or delayed paper evaporate. Partial fixes will not achieve this. Only end-to-end digital frameworks aligned with law, technology, and market practice can.
There is, of course, an uncomfortable truth embedded in Shakespeare’s line: desperate appliances may also fail. Not every digital initiative will succeed, and not every platform will deliver on its promise. Yet the greater risk lies in refusing decisive action altogether. In trade finance, clinging to familiar processes because they are “known” is no longer conservative; it is dangerous. The cost of inaction is exclusion, of SMEs from financing, of banks from viable business models, and ultimately of trade finance from relevance in a real-time digital economy.
Shakespeare’s warning is not a call for chaos, but for courage. When conditions are mild, moderation works. When they are not, moderation becomes denial. Digital trade finance is no longer about whether to change, but whether the industry is willing to apply remedies commensurate with the severity of the condition. The disease has grown desperate. Only equally decisive appliances will relieve it, or not at all.
Dave Meynell
Traydguru
2 January 2026
