Velotrade’s Sustainable Digital Trade Finance platform offers financing services to exporters globally, matching investors willing to advance funds to this alternative asset class.
Velotrade matches the growing expectations of clients, investors, team members and other key audience sectors to meet ESG targets. It has now adjusted its core business to serve ESG requirements. Here is how!
Velotrade and ESG:
- Environmental
An eco-friendly FinTech company with a fully digitised business model - Social
Velotrade performs community engagement to create a social impact - Governance
We are a fully regulated and compliant financial institution
Content
Environmental Initiatives by Velotrade
Digitised Business Process
As an internet business, Velotrade enjoys an advantage over more traditional organisations because almost all our operations are conducted online.
We have an environmentally friendly business model with limited overheads and low administrative staffing requirements.
Nearly all transactions and document exchange by Velotrade is performed digitally with both internal and external parties.
During the onboarding process, clients can upload all documents on our platform unless face to face onboarding is required.
Our self-service approach allows clients to conduct transactions remotely without the time-consuming complexity of extensive document exchange.
The hiring of new employees is mostly digital and the interviewing process is done via video.
CO2 Neutral Website
The tech industry and the internet are heavily dependent on electricity used to power data centres and telecom networks (Producing 2% of global carbon emissions).
With faster and cheaper access to data and the internet, carbon emissions from the internet are on the rise.
And it is only going to increase rapidly in the coming years.
How can a typical business address this issue?
Today it is possible to calculate the emissions of your company website – a prime asset for most organisations.
By calculating your company’s CO2 emissions per page view, and checking whether your data centre provider uses a renewable energy source to host the website, it is possible to benchmark against competitors.
You can set targets for carbon reductions accordingly.
Velotrade is a CO2 neutral certified website by one of industry’s leading website carbon footprint controllers.
As a FinTech company that relies primarily on digital platforms for its business operations, Velotrade understands the growing concern for climate change and has thus joined the initiative of creating CO2 neutral websites.
CO2NeutralWebsite calculates the amount of CO2 emitted by a website and arranges carbon offset by investing in climate projects to neutralise emissions.
When tested for website carbon footprint, Velotrade only produces 0.67g of CO2 per page view. It is cleaner than 61% of web pages tested by website carbon.
Based on the tested pages, a website produces 1.76 grams of CO2 per page view on average.
This would be 211kg of CO2 per year if the page received 10,000 views per month.
On the other hand, with over 10,000 monthly page views, Velotrade would only produce 80.54kg of CO2 in a year which is equivalent to:
Now imagine how much bigger would these numbers be with 211Kg of CO2 production!
Velotrade meets optimum efficiency goals by using as little power as possible and investing whatever little carbon emissions are generated into CO2 reducing projects.
ESG funds that support such good causes receive increasing support from investors.
By creating a sustainable website, Velotrade has taken care of its digital footprints while thriving towards this growing ESG initiative.
A Paperless Office
Velotrade has digitised most of its business operations.
Going paperless within the office has enabled the Velotrade team to improve bookkeeping efficiency, save time on document management processes and reduce manual data entry.
The time-consuming risk of lost documents has become an issue of the past.
An automated document management process sets automation rules to control document flow and ensures timely approvals.
To further reduce paper consumption, all signatures required at Velotrade are signed electronically through the eSign Live application.
Exceptions are the investors who trade on our platform. They must sign the agreements physically due to Anti Money Laundering (AML) and Counter Terrorist Financing (CTF) guidelines.
Adopting such software significantly reduce the need for printing documents.
We consume 3 stacks of A4 printing paper per year on average costing us only around $100HKD. This is equivalent to 1,500 sheets, which is remarkably impressive.
According to the industry-leading research firm Gartner, around 3% of a company’s revenue is spent on paper, printing, storing, and maintaining files of information.
That’s not our case 🙂
Companies who want to promote sustainability are naturally cutting both their environmental footprint and wasteful spending.
Today, the only processes that need to be conducted on paper at Velotrade are to meet the requirements of financial industry regulatory bodies.
Limiting the amount of paper your organisation uses will conserve resources and save money in the long term.
Converting as many processes as possible from paper to digital will cut down on resource consumption.
With the growing concern for the environment and increasing adoption of ESG sustainability factors, organisations are taking control of their paper consumption by digitising business processes.
Brought to you by Velotrade, a marketplace for corporates to access financing.
Want to know more about ESG?
Read our introductory article to uncover what ESG means for your business.
Governance Initiatives by Velotrade
Compliance and Risk Management
When it comes to adhering to government regulations, Velotrade is strictly adherent to such principles.
The company is a registered financial institution regulated by The Securities and Futures Commission of Hong Kong. It also holds the Money Lender’s license giving it the legal right to conduct business requiring the lending of money.
Also, when it comes to clients, Velotrade has a rigid onboarding process that requires clients to comply with strict regulations. All clients must undergo a KYC process and submit specific documents on the platform.
A thorough background check is thus conducted to prevent fraudulent and illicit activities such as money laundering.
Velotrade is working to match internal company requirements so that tomorrow it can provide new investment opportunities that are closely aligned with evolving international standards.
Integration of the above ESG measures can bridge the trade finance gap through sustainable financing.
Financing for sustainable development implies that the goal to a sustainable future is not far away for Velotrade.
Social Initiatives by Velotrade
Employee Diversity
With offices in Hong Kong, Vietnam, Taipei, and Shenzhen, Velotrade strongly values inclusivity and diversity within its institution.
We are a multicultural organisation where employees come from Hong Kong, China, India, Italy, France, United States, Belgium, and Vietnam.
Velotrade does not tolerate discrimination of any kind be it religion, gender, race, colour, sexual orientation, or nationality.
Most of our employees in senior positions are women.
Sustainable Events – Beach Clean-up
Community engagement is a key element when considering the social aspect of ESG.
This shows that a company not only cares about its employees but the people that it serves and the society at large as well. It is important for the whole company to get together from time to time and contribute to improving the place they live and work around.
Velotrade is actively engaging with its community by getting them involved in events held to bring a positive change to society and the environment.
These activities are truly an eye-opener on how careless and ruthless people can be towards our mother nature.
We realised how big of a positive impact we can have on our environment just by taking small initiatives like these.
It is the little things that count indeed.
Follow our Beach Clean-up Stories for the latest news.