As tariff-related pressures mount, HSBC is launching a trade financing and payments solution to help businesses conduct cross-border trade. 

Businesses across economic sectors including electronics, pharmaceuticals and apparel are choosing a wait-and-see approach, Ajit Menon, managing director and U.S. head of global trade solutions at HSBC, told Bank Automation News. 

“Every client irrespective of size and scale, at this point in time, is tracking what’s happening with the tariff situation, what’s with the import situation, and what sort of tariffs apply to their businesses.” 

The $3 trillion bank is adding an import tool to the TradePay platform it launched in 2023, Menon said. Businesses can easily gain financing to pay import duties and make ACH payments to U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) or to a broker that helps them manage imports on the same TradePay platform, making the experience seamless, he said 

“TradePay is effectively a solution which digitizes working capital and payment settlement to enhance the user journey,” Menon said. 

If a business imports goods, it must pay tariffs within 10 days but might be able to sell the goods in 30 to 90 days, Menon said, adding that the trade financing can act as a working capital bridge.  

Only HSBC clients can use TradePay, but after the CBP starts accepting real-time payments, HSBCcan add that option to then, Menon said, 

The London-based bank offers the service in other markets, so it didn’t have to create it from scratch, Menon said. HSBC helped settled $900 billion in trade flows in 2024. 

Tariff uncertainty 

Financial services firms voiced concerns about tariff uncertainty during recent earnings calls. 

The wariness makes it difficult for businesses and banks to make long-term investment and growth decisions, Matt Sekerke, macro economist and managing director at consultancy SEDA Experts, told BAN. 

“Uncertainty really weighs the most on banks and also in capital markets,” he said. “Banks are now evaluating a company or a person based on their prospects, making it hard to underwrite loans.” 

The financial services industry will look for tools to manage risks, Sekerke said, adding that many businesses will look to their banking partners for help with tariffs. 

Major banks including JPMorgan, Citi and Wells Fargo plan to adjust their 2025 financial outlooks but are finding it difficult amid regularly changing economic conditions. 

“The potential impacts from tariffs have led to higher levels of economic uncertainty,” Chris Suh, chief financial officer at payments giant Visa, said during the company’s earnings call on April 29.  

Retailers are loading up on goods before they become more expensive, while corporate clients are focused on short-term [less than 1 year] money management to gain some certainty over the medium term, Jeremy Barnum, CFO at JPM, said during the bank’s earnings call on April 11. 

Businesses are in “a bit of a wait-and-see attitude. It’s hard to make long-term decisions right now,” Barnum said. 

“We’ve got some question marks in terms of what tariffs will mean to some of our partners,” Charlie Scharf, Wells Fargo’s chief executive officer said during the bank’s first-quarter earnings call on April 11. “We are monitoring [drawing capital back] really, really closely, both on the commercial banking side and the commercial investment banking side.” 

Citi CEO Jane Fraser sounded more optimistic than many major bank leaders during the company’s Q1 earnings call on April 15. 

“When all is said and done and these long-standing trade imbalances and other structural shifts are behind us, the U.S. will still be the world’s leading economy and the dollar will remain the reserve currency,” Fraser said.