I would like to enhance our Trade Finance Due Diligence documentation. How do any of you document due diligence - checklists, forms, etc.

Thank You for your help

Once upon a time, I did an informal survey of banks with a healthy volume of trade finance. Most relied on checklists; some more elaborate than others, some electronic records, some paper. A very small number were in the process of building automated profiling processes.

Can't really help much since we are not involved in Trade Finance, but this site may be of some interest to you.

http://www.wolfsberg-principles.com/pdf/Wolfsberg_Trade_Principles_Paper_II_(2011).pdf

We conduct annual review and when a client deviates significantly from established expectations. We look at type of transactions, geographic locations, volume and velocity stats and periodically test to ensure all pertinent parties are being verified to OFAC on each transaction.

There is some useful information on due diligence and risk mitigation in the BSA Exam manual:

http://www.ffiec.gov/bsa_aml_infobase/pages_manual/OLM_079.htm

This is my favorite line from that section,

"The sophistication of the documentation review process and MIS should be commensurate with the size and complexity of the bank’s trade finance portfolio and its role in the letter of credit process. "

Thanks for all the input.

Is there anywhere that I can find checklist(s) to do the onsite monitoring due diligence reviews?

Hahaha! In other words - if you're going to swim in the deep ocean, you better have some really effective shark repellent.

I usually find that the banks who don't do this often and don't know what they are doing are the ones who create a mess. I suppose there are some who go off the deep end without proper systems, etc.