Eikos Risk Applications > News > Eikos In The News > New Facility gives forwarders access to captial

Eikos Risk Applications is a licensed Financial Services Provider (license number FSP 481) in terms of the Financial Advisory and Intermediary Act no 37 of 2002 of the Republic of South Africa and GRMS is a licensed Financial Services Provider (license number FSP 4940) in terms of the Financial Advisory and Intermediary Act no 37 of 2002 of the Republic of South Africa

New Facility gives forwarders access to
capital

Freight and Trading Weekly

4 August 2000

THE CONTINUING growth of outsourcing in the shipping and freight industries has created opportunity for the development of a number of new products in the finance and insurance sectors, according to Eikos Risk Applications director Hugh Reimers.

"The cargo owner is increasingly seeking to entrust the management of non-core activities to companies that offer solutions in these areas as core functionality," he told FTW. "The freight forwarders fall under this description - and are ideally placed to offer additional related services, such as finance and insurance. In this way, the cargo owner is able to reduce the number of relationships he is required to manage in order to move his cargo to his markets.

"The products we've put together for forwarders allow them to take on more-and-more of this functionality."

According to Reimers, these products supply access to alternative insurance and banking options through the medium of the freight operator - for example the forex transactions required to move goods across international borders.

"Also trade finance, which is already being provided by some of the larger forwarders," he added, "who are, as we speak, procuring goods on behalf of their clients and transporting these goods all the way to the buyer. The client benefits by having to pay once for the entire transaction when the goods are delivered to his door."

Eikos has put into place a facility that provides forwarders with access to capital. This capital can be on-sold to the cargo owner for these trade finance deals. The company has also developed relationships with the banking sector to allow the facilitation of alternative access to forex.

"It is a packaged trade facilitation product for the industry," Reimers said, "with the forwarder outsourcing the management of the facility to Eikos."

One step further

The company has also gone one step further in the development of outsourced processing options for the insurance and freight industry. According to Sean Pyott, director of Eikos, there is a large amount of duplication of processing effort in the supply chain - and this duplication results in increased costs to the cargo owner.

"We are positioning ourselves to be able to offer processing capabilities, using leading edge technology, to the freight operator and insurance industry, " Pyott added. "This will ensure work is performed once for all parties in a true outsource arrangement - and at a far reduced cost, that will ultimately benefit the cargo owner."