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How a Single KPI Rewrote Global Trade Finance
Description
Episode 20 of Global Trade with Fexingo digs into the obscure but world-altering metric: the 360-day year used in trade finance. When the International Chamber of Commerce updated its uniform rules in 2020 to sync interest calculations with actual calendar days, it quietly reshaped $9 trillion in trade credit. Lucas explains how banks and corporates had priced $2.3 trillion in short-term loans using a convention dating back to Babylonian clay tablets — and how one spreadsheet error in a Singapore shipping firm exposed the cost. Luna pushes back on whether this is just accounting trivia. Together they trace the ripple: from letter-of-credit pricing in Mumbai to commodity hedging in Chicago, and why the shift still isn't complete in 2026. A concrete case, a single number, and a trade rule most people have never heard of.