Willis Towers Watson Upgrades Credit Risk Trading Platform

Willis Towers Watson, has launched a next generation version of Mercury, its credit risk placement platform which offers clients the ability to bind credit insurance policies themselves over an online portal.

Originally developed in the 1990s, the concept was moved by Willis to a web platform called Mercury in 2004. It offers banks and now corporates, access to their chosen credit insurers. Willis Towers Watson clients can use Mercury to place a credit risk insurance transaction.

In addition, Mercury provides management information such as quantifying in real-time a business’s exposure to certain geographies or counter-parties wherever they are in the world.

Many political and trade credit risk insurers are already set-up to underwrite via the Mercury platform and new markets are being added on a regular basis. Users have the option to select which underwriters they would like to use. The platform offers a full range of trade finance activities from import and export letters of credit, trade advances, bill purchase and receivables financing.

Paul Davidson, head of Willis Towers Watson’s political and trade credit risk practice, Financial Solutions, said: “Trade finance is a sector whose lifeblood is efficiency of execution. Mercury is an interface that removes the transacting administration commonly associated with insurance in a manner that will be familiar to the front line trade finance staff within banks and corporates.”