Enno-Burghard Weitzel, chief solutions officer at Surecomp—a Trade Finance global award winner—explains why compliance and the ‘What’s in it for me?’ rule govern tech spending.
Global Finance: With budgets tightening, what is the hierarchy of priorities for banks?
Enno-Burghard Weitzel: The hierarchy is rigid and budget-driven. The absolute, non-negotiable priority is compliance, which always has a budget because regulators require it, and the cost of non-compliance is too high. To illustrate this stark reality, a regulator in one country suddenly changed a rule, forcing a bank to allocate half of its investment budget just to be compliant in that single country. This instantly froze all other initiatives.
Therefore, any new technology proposal must fall into one of three budget categories, in this specific order: to be more compliant, which always has a budget; to grow the business solutions, which clearly delivers business growth; and to increase operational efficiency. Banks are not interested in efforts that merely upgrade the user interface’s look and feel on their portals.
GF: We’ve heard years of hype around technologies like blockchain and AI. How have discussions with bank and corporate clients evolved?
Weitzel: The conversation has become far more content-headed, centered squarely on the client’s interests: “So, what’s in it for me?” and “What will make me really turn the needle?” They don’t care about blockchain or AI as technologies; they only care that vendors can deliver tangible results, such as helping them grow their business, increase operational efficiency, and provide better service for their property.
These technologies are now correctly viewed as just services in the background that help achieve a common goal.
GF: Beyond budget constraints, what is the single biggest operational or philosophical barrier preventing banks from fully digitalizing?
Weitzel: The largest obstacle is corporate bank engagement. Banks ultimately want to make money and do more business, which requires getting closer to their customers. They must recognize that being on an open, multi-bankplatform, while it may seem counterintuitive to traditional competition, is essential. Corporations shift their business to those banks that provide the greatest service and liquidity on a shared platform. By being on the platform, banks provide better service to these customers and snap the business away from competitors who are not.
GF: In which areas are AI tools being deployed, and what major problem are they solving for banks and businesses?
Weitzel: The primary focus for AI agents is addressing the massive skills gap created by the steady retirement of experienced staff who form the backbone of trade finance processing. It’s difficult for tier two, three, and four banks to simply recruit experienced replacements.
AI is trained on all the rules for letters of credit (LC), including Uniform Customs and Practice as well as International Standby Practice, to empower less-experienced staff. One example is guarantee vetting, where the AI checks guarantee text for common critical errors such as missing expiry dates. The AI will hint to the user that they could be liable. This improves the quality of text before it reaches an expert’s desk, ensuring that guarantees are properly sorted and reducing senior staff workload.
Another example is when an LC arrives and an AI automatically performs a “workability check,” providing a red, amber, or green traffic light to the inexperienced processor. The AI can be very specific, flagging complex rule clashes: for example, “It says UCP but then the phytosanitary document requires wet ink, doesn’t fit.”
GF: ESG was a major topic recently. Is it still of interest to corporates and banks?
Weitzel: The momentum that once surrounded it has vanished, and the technology to solve these problems is essentially kept in the vendor’s drawer. It is not in production because there is no market willingness to commit to it, though it can be brought back quickly if interest resumes.
The only related activity is some banks processing the “E” (environmental) component for internal reporting on “green politics.” This is a far less sophisticated, internal measure. Instead of using the full, complex International Chamber of Commerce mechanism that looks at the exporter, importer, ship, and goods description, banks simply classify a transaction as “green” if they know it is for building something like a solar panel. This is done solely to enable the bank to report on how much of its portfolio is classified as green.
