One enduring legacy of Covid has been a reappraisal of supply-chain resilience. But some firms have been tackling entrenched practices in this sector for much longer than that. Supply-chain industry veterans Sandra Nolasco and Carmen Marín came together in 2017 to try and change the way corporates approached supplier finance.
They set up Twinco Capital, a digital supply-chain finance platform focused on improving access to finance for suppliers – predominantly in the retail sector. It works with five large retailers and more than 100 suppliers based in 12 countries, including Bangladesh, China, Pakistan, South Korea, Turkey, Thailand, Vietnam and Indonesia.
Prior to setting up Twinco, chief executive Nolasco was managing director at BBVA and head of structured trade finance, while COO Carmen spent over 16 years at Grupo Santander.
“The traditional approach has been to fund just the tail end of the trade flow, when the supplier has delivered the goods and there is an invoice which has been accepted by the buyer,” observes Nolasco. “All this is doing is funding the payment terms of large corporates.”
That leaves the supplier on the hook for some big expenses, such as raw materials and production costs – including staff wages.
