Expert LC structuring, confirmation & non-recourse discounting solutions, and zero-discrepancy LC documentation — delivered by a team of former international bankers.
Get paid safely and early. We arrange confirmation and non-recourse discounting of your LCs through international banks — including banks beyond your own network — and check your documents to bank standard, so payment arrives in full, on first presentation, soon after you ship. We also help you offer credit to buyers in emerging markets under LCs or avals, with the payment risk taken on by those banks rather than your business.
Our exporter solutions →Pay your suppliers at sight while you take time to pay. We structure your import LCs to secure financing and deferred-payment terms — so your supplier is paid immediately, and your cash flow has room to breathe. We also help reduce your import financing costs, arranging funding at international USD and EUR benchmark-linked rates from international banks.
Our importer solutions →When your trade desk is stretched, outsource specialist LC document checking and structuring to former bankers — rigorous examination under UCP 600 and ISBP 821, bank-level scrutiny on demand, without adding headcount. An expert pair of hands for overflow volumes, complex presentations, and difficult corridors.
Our bank services →
VRITFC is a specialist Letter of Credit consultancy. We have sat on the bank's side of the table — and we put that insight to work for exporters and importers, arranging LC confirmation, non-recourse discounting and clean documentation through a network of international banks.
The service standards provided by Mr Vijay are beyond excellence. His professional ability to connect with bankers in different countries and form consortium to provide trade solutions has helped us even for difficult countries in Asian and African Region. His rigorous follow-ups and ownership of transaction provides highest level of comfort to clients.
VRITFC's strong command of UCP 600, extensive banking network, and in-depth domain expertise greatly simplified a highly complex USD 10 million export LC transaction to Libya. Their involvement played a key role in the successful and seamless execution of the transaction.
Vijay is a highly seasoned, dedicated and well-connected trade finance expert. He is focused on best advising and supporting customers and helped our team create more value out of trade finance transactions.
We don't offer generic trade finance. Every service we provide is built around one instrument — the Letter of Credit — and the deep expertise required to make it work in the world's most difficult markets.
VRITFC is not a generalist trade finance firm. We are pure-play LC specialists — which means every tool in our kit, every bank relationship we hold, and our team's 50+ years of combined experience is pointed at one thing: making your LC transaction work — cleanly, and on time.
The shape of an LC deal is decided long before documents are presented — and the right structure protects your cash flow, your margin, and your payment. From the proforma-invoice stage, we help you weigh the buyer's bank and country risk and structure the deal around it: whether to trade on an LC or an avalised draft, which payment terms to use — sight, usance or UPAS — how to price credit costs into your numbers, and when a transferable or back-to-back LC is the right tool. We also review the LC wording itself — catching unworkable clauses, impractical shipment windows, or document requirements no bank will accept, before the LC is issued.
Already confirming your export LCs with banks in your network? There may still be sharper pricing out there. Confirmation rates vary widely from bank to bank, and the best rate for one market is rarely the best for another. We help you find the right banking partner for each export market you sell into — sourcing confirmation from international banks beyond your own network to secure keener rates, lower your confirmation cost, and lift your margin on every deal. And where the issuing bank or country carries real risk, that same confirmation protects you: present compliant documents and you get paid, whatever happens to the buyer, the issuing bank, or the country.
You've shipped. The documents are compliant. But the LC carries a 90-day, 180-day, or longer deferred payment term — and you need cash now, not in six months. Non-recourse discounting converts your deferred LC receivable into immediate cash, with the bank and country risk passing to the financier — if the obligor bank doesn't pay at maturity, that risk sits with them, not you. It also takes the receivable off your balance sheet, and lets you offer buyers the credit terms they want while still being paid today. And because we source discounting across our international network, we secure competitive rates that protect your margin.
In commodity trade, where prices move, a buyer facing a loss may seize on the smallest documentary discrepancy to delay payment, force a renegotiation, or renege altogether — and each discrepancy gives the confirming, negotiating or issuing bank grounds to do so. Getting the documents exactly right is what protects your payment. We prepare, check and certify your complete document set — bills of lading, commercial invoices, certificates of origin, inspection certificates, packing lists — at draft stage, to international banking standards. As former international bankers who examined these documents inside the banks themselves, we catch discrepancies before they reach the bank. Our standard is simple: zero discrepancies, zero payment delays.
In much of the world — Francophone Africa especially — trade is settled by avalised drafts (traite avalisée) rather than Letters of Credit. Once a bank adds its aval to the draft, it carries that bank's guarantee. We discount these avalised drafts on a non-recourse basis, sourcing banks willing to take the buyer-bank and country risk — so you can sell on credit terms into difficult markets, get paid today, and retain no payment risk. It is one of our deepest specialisms.
We do one thing — Letters of Credit, exclusively. Not corporate finance, not project finance, not trade consulting broadly. LCs are our circle of competence, and we stay firmly within it. That single-minded focus is what gives us the depth you need when a transaction gets complex.
Finding a bank that will cover risk in the world's most difficult markets is rarely easy — and that is exactly what we do. We've built relationships with global, regional and local banks, from West Africa to South and Central Asia and beyond. When a deal needs a bank beyond your own network, that is where we come in.
Great LC outcomes come from two skills that rarely sit together: commercial instinct — the deal-making to structure multi-bank syndications, avalised-draft and back-to-back transactions — and operational rigour — the command of UCP 600, ISBP 821 and ICC detail that makes a structure hold. Our team has lived both sides, front office and back. That dual fluency is what turns a difficult transaction into a clean, completed one.
We care about getting your deal done. Every transaction is handled personally by senior, former bankers — with the perseverance to work a difficult structure for as long as it takes, and the accountability to see it through. If something goes wrong, we fix it. Direct bank relationships and rigorous follow-up are what our clients consistently value.
The transaction journey — from proforma invoice to payment in your account.
You share your transaction details — underlying goods, buyer, issuing bank, country, value, and timeline. We assess the risk and structure within 24–48 hours.
We design the optimal structure — confirmation, discounting, document preparation, or a combination — and present a clear proposal, including our fees, the bank's charges, and timeline.
We engage our international banking network directly, manage all communications, secure confirmations, and handle every technical and documentation requirement end-to-end.
Documents are presented, accepted, and payment is made — on time, without discrepancies, and with complete peace of mind.
500+ transactions across 70+ buyer countries — a selection of the cases behind the numbers.
When Sri Lanka's 2021 crisis led international banks to freeze new exposure, a major global conglomerate needed its Sri Lankan-bank LCs confirmed and discounted to keep supplying under a major government contract. VRITFC arranged confirmation and discounting for USD 200M+ of LCs — and delivered over USD 700K in savings on confirmation fees and discounting interest.
USD 700K IN COST SAVINGSRead full case →In Francophone Africa, trade is often settled by avalised drafts (traite avalisée) rather than Letters of Credit. VRITFC arranges non-recourse discounting of drafts avalised by African banks — covering the buyer-bank and country risk so exporters can sell into these markets with confidence and still get paid, without recourse.
AVALISED DRAFTS · FRANCOPHONE AFRICARead full case →A leading global commodity trader needed risk cover on Commercial Bank of Ethiopia to supply the Ethiopian government — but market capacity for CBE was maxed out amid Ethiopia's economic strain. Over six months, VRITFC structured a first-of-its-kind solution creating USD 100M+ of capacity at 360-day tenor, opening the market where little existed.
SYNDICATED LC CONFIRMATIONRead full case →In commodity trade, where prices move, a buyer facing a loss may seize on the smallest documentary discrepancy to reject documents or renege. Getting LC documents exactly right is what protects the exporter's payment. VRITFC prepares and checks export documents to international bank standard — for one exporter, cutting payment time from 30 days to under a week; for another, securing payment within 48 hours of presentation.
ZERO DISCREPANCIES · ZERO PAYMENT DELAYSRead full case →A global agri-commodities trader was shipping bulk wheat to East Africa under a Letter of Credit issued by a bank in Djibouti — a frontier market few financiers will cover. To protect the trader against non-payment, VRITFC arranged for a Middle Eastern bank to take on the Djibouti issuing-bank and country risk, securing payment on a corridor most would avoid.
FRONTIER CORRIDORRead full case →Banks in emerging markets raise foreign-currency funding against underlying trade assets. VRITFC has structured, syndicated and arranged short-term FI trade loans of up to 360 days — including a USD 20M risk-participation syndication for a leading South Asian bank, and a GBP 30M cross-currency structured loan for the UK subsidiary of an international bank.
TRADE LOANS FOR BANKSRead full case →Exporters, importers, and the banks that serve them — from SMEs to global commodity traders and multinationals — a selection of the businesses that have trusted VRITFC with their trade finance needs.

















From Singapore to Geneva, Mumbai to Dubai, London to Lagos — our network reaches across major trade finance hubs and frontier markets.
Built and run by career international bankers, bringing 50+ years of combined experience from the correspondent banking and trade finance divisions of leading foreign banks around the world — we put front-line banking expertise behind every cross-border export and import transaction.
We have sat on the other side — issuing, confirming, scrutinising, negotiating, discounting and making payments under LCs from within the banks themselves. That means we know exactly where a transaction can fail, what an issuing or a confirming and negotiating bank is really looking for, and how to get your documents accepted on first presentation.
We enable exporters to offer credit terms to buyers in emerging and high-risk markets worldwide — and then take that payment risk off their books. Because the sale is backed by a Letter of Credit or an avalised draft from the buyer's bank, we can transfer the risk of non-payment to international banks, so our clients sell on credit into difficult markets and still get paid, safely and early.
And because payment under an LC is based on documents presented, we help clients prepare and check them to international banking standards — UCP 600 and ISBP 821 — so presentations are clean and payment is never held up by technicalities or discrepancies.

Vijay Ramanujam is a Letter of Credit specialist who has spent 25+ years on both sides of the transaction — inside international banks and inside a global commodity trader. He has confirmed, financed and made payments under LCs as a banker, and structured and relied on them as a corporate, where stakes were always high and margins for error near zero. Few advisors have seen the Letter of Credit from both seats; that dual perspective is what he brings to every client.
Formerly Regional Head of Trade Finance for Asia at Louis Dreyfus Company (Singapore) and Head of Trade Finance Operations at American Express Bank Singapore. He founded his own independent boutique international trade finance consultancy in the UK, and now runs it as VRITFC from Chennai, India — advising clients across India, Singapore, Dubai and Africa.
We believe no trade deal should fail for want of financing or risk coverage. When a client's own banks have limited appetite for emerging-market risk, that is where we come in — connecting them to banks beyond their network with the appetite to get the deal done.
We do LCs and only LCs. This is not a side service — it is our entire focus. That depth of expertise and hands-on experience is exactly what clients need when a transaction gets complex.
When we take on a transaction, we own it completely — rigorous follow-up, direct banker relationships, and personal accountability at every step.
We tell clients exactly what is possible and what is not — no over-promising, no false comfort. Our relationships are built on honest, expert counsel.
Every solution is designed so that all parties — exporter, importer, bank — benefit. When a deal works for everyone, it gets done, and it gets done again.
Our operating policies reflect the same standards of professionalism and transparency we bring to every client engagement.
All client information, transaction details, and business intelligence shared with VRITFC is held in strict confidence. We never disclose client identities or transaction specifics without explicit written consent. Confidentiality obligations survive the end of any engagement.
VRITFC maintains full compliance with applicable AML regulations across all jurisdictions in which we operate. We conduct due diligence on all clients and counterparties, and do not facilitate transactions that fail to meet regulatory standards or ethical thresholds.
All prospective clients undergo a thorough KYC process before engagement. We collect and verify identification, business registration, and beneficial ownership information in accordance with international banking standards and applicable regulatory requirements.
VRITFC identifies and manages potential conflicts of interest proactively. Where a conflict cannot be managed, we disclose it to affected parties and, where necessary, decline the engagement to protect the integrity of our advice.
Client data is stored securely and processed only for the purposes for which it was provided. We maintain data security practices consistent with applicable data protection laws, including GDPR where relevant, and restrict access to authorised personnel only.
All advice and services are delivered to the highest professional standards. We maintain current knowledge of UCP 600, ISBP 821, URDG 758, and all relevant ICC rules — ensuring our counsel reflects current international best practice at all times.
Whether you need LC confirmation and discounting arranged, documents prepared or checked, or advice on a complex structure — feel free to reach out. Someone from our team will get in touch with you within 24–48 hours.
Reach out directly — by phone, email, or the form. Tell us about your transaction, and we'll tell you how we can help.
◆ LC Confirmation
◆ Non-Recourse Discounting / Forfaiting
◆ Traite / Avalised Draft Discounting
◆ UPAS LC / Buyers' Credit / RA (Reimbursement) Financing for Imports
◆ LC Document Checking & Review
◆ Country / Bank Risk Advisory