British insurance company Sedgwick Ltd announced yesterday that it had taken a shareholding in Bermuda-based Full Service Trade System Ltd, the operating company for the TradeCard e-commerce system for international business-to-business transactions. TradeCard is the software at the heart of system, running on desktop computers in the participants’ offices and created by Fairfax, Virgina-based business and IT consultancy American Management Systems Inc. The scheme itself, meanwhile is the brainchild of the World Trade Centers Association (WTCA), the New York-based promoter of trade links with operations in 97 countries, and replaces the still largely manual process of international transactions, involving letters of credit, with an automated one, including objective third-party verification of documents, explained a spokesperson for the WTCA. Full Service Trade System runs the hub at which the document review takes place, and the global network is provided by General Electric’s GEIN subsidiary. TradeCard handled its first transaction last month, when a US company acquired a shipment of baby strollers from a manufacturer in Taiwan, with a US bank granting the credit and the deal being paid for via the system. London-based Sedgwick’s initial participation will be to insure cargo transacted via the system, said its head of marketing for Europe, Tony Richards, though the company is already considering other products in the e-commerce marketplace, including, possibly, even insurance against political risk. Sources close to the deal said the insurer’s entry into Full Service Trade System obeys a rolling schedule, its initial acquisition having totaled $250,000, with further tranches to follow at pre-established intervals.
