Happy New Year to you all, we hope this is a successful and enjoyable year for you. Many African countries are running short of hard currency and have implemented exchange controls or simply cannot keep pace with demand.  A lot of our clients have requested assistance in turning their African local currency back into hard currency. We have worked hard to offer a variety of solutions and liquidity partners for the majority of the challenging currencies. In addition, we have finalised a joint venture with DhowKimura (SCTF), a London based commodity trade finance fund, to offer a trade finance option for the repatriation of funds. Essentially, trapped local currency funds will be leant as trade finance to fund commodity exports and the funds will be repaid in hard currency. DhowKimura provide the complete umbrella ‘wrap’ for these transactions, significantly reducing the associated risks and these structures facilitate the repatriation of funds at rates that are much better than the parallel market rates. For more information please email or call us.