Mobolaji P. Ezekiel

International trade as a form of commercial transaction is trade that cuts across borders. As it involves transactions outside borders it is met with natural barriers which are either physical or cultural such as distance, language, geography. Due to the inclusion of more than one country there exists different legislation governing the parties to the transaction although sometimes similar in contents. In fact, there also exists a separate and distinct body of rules and legislation only applicable to international trade, not necessarily
belonging to one nation but adopted by several nations when conducting trade across their borders. The differences in legal regimes, modes of conducting business, and even relationship between the involved countries can hamper or facilitate the carrying out of international trade. Some strong examples are: difficulty in employing and relocating qualified nationals of other countries who fall short of the migration requirements of the concerned country; poor visibility of businesses to prospective international clientele due to its
small size or lack of funds to advertise internationally; exchange rates; the practice of de risking (prohibition of wire transfers, credit cards settlements, and even hard foreign currency to a country local bank accounts); ban of the use of hawala also known as underground banking which is simply money transfer without money movement. The last two examples are measures imposed by government and employed by financial
institutions to prevent innocent looking cross border payments from being used in money
laundering, terrorism financing, tax evasion etc. These challenges form serious road blocks to international trade, and it is universal that for trade to occur the willing parties to the transaction must have the capacity to contract. Several regulatory frameworks and enabling platforms have been created by the xvi government to facilitate cross border trade e.g. streamlining customs procedures, single trade window portals, border infrastructure, trade agreements etc. While these platforms have been useful and continue to remain useful in international trade, the challenges to trade are increasing in the face globalization and exponential population growth etc. technology has stepped in to fill some of these gaps, as it may prove too slow to rely solely on the government to create enabling platforms keeping up with the trends of growth or increasing demands of the population. xvii