Tradewind Finance, an international trade finance provider, is excited to be celebrating its 25th anniversary this year. This milestone commemorates twenty-five years of serving exporters, importers, manufacturers and more with innovative liquidity solutions to grow and succeed. Tradewind was founded in 2000 in Germany with the mission to help suppliers bridge cash flow and equip them with the tools to trade securely.  It first began delivering receivables-based financing to textile suppliers in Turkey selling to European importers. Like today, Tradewind replenished...

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This Citi GPS report focuses on Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) into the U.S. and how the rapidly shifting dynamics of global capital movements might affect it. Whereas most other regions saw declines in 2024 vs 2023, the U.S. enjoyed a double-digit growth of 13%, while also recording the highest growth in greenfield projects. It is also worth noting that while the U.S. was the largest recipient country of the global FDI inflows, it was also the biggest giver by far...

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What the Working Plan means for your business Why should I read this? On April 16, 2025, the European Commission adopted its first 2025–2030 Working Plan for the Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation (ESPR), a major step towards reshaping how products are designed, produced, and sold in the EU. The ESPR aims to improve the environmental performance of a wide range of products throughout their life cycle. It introduces new rules covering both product performance - such as durability, availability of spare parts, and...

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EU and the UK sign Security and Defence Partnership On Monday, 19 May, European Commission President von der Leyen, European Council President Costa and European Commissioner with responsibility for the EU-UK Relationship Maroš Šefčovič held the first official post-Brexit EU-UK Summit with UK Prime Minister Starmer and Minister for EU Relations Nick Thomas-Symonds. As expected, the Summit brought an Agreement on an EU-UK Security and Defence Partnership. Still, it was light in concrete deliverables otherwise, apart from an extension of the...

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Overview:  The dollar is finishing the week heavily.  It is off against nearly all of the world's currencies.  The only exceptions are the Turkish lira and Hong Kong dollar.  For the week, among the G10 currencies, only the Australian dollar has not risen at least 1%,  Helped by stronger than expected retail sales, sterling set a new three-year high (~$1.3500).  Between the tariffs and the budget, the Dollar Index is set to snap a four-week upside correction, even as the...

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The European Commission has introduced a new package to simplify rules and reduce bureaucracy across the Single Market. Inter alia, this package aims to simplify record-keeping obligations of Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs), small mid-caps (SMCs) and organisations with fewer than 750 employees. According to the Commission’s recent proposal, the GDPR obligation to maintain records of processing activities (RoPA) (Article 30 GDPR) shall not apply to an enterprise or an organisation employing fewer than 750 persons unless the processing it carries out is likely...

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As early summer approaches, we wanted to highlight several critical regulatory developments that require attention from US businesses operating in European markets. Our international team has been closely monitoring these changes to help you navigate the evolving compliance landscape. The UK's Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Act (ECCTA) introduces new compliance challenges that could affect US businesses with UK connections. Simultaneously, the rise of artificial intelligence technologies is reshaping the approach to trade-secret protection in Europe, requiring fresh strategies...

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