This section will collect articles on commodity finance as Part G and Part H of the financial centre book, on the commodity trading hub and on trade finance, fraud and risk, are published. Until then, it points to the history of credit in the port and to the current figures for the port.
The entrepôt ran on credit from the start. Goods moved on terms of three to six months from an agency house to a Chinese dealer and on to smaller traders and the captains of junks and prahus. Accounts were settled when the produce was sold.
Every link carried a credit risk, and the way merchants handled it remains instructive for anyone who finances goods in transit.
Singapore's port handled a record 44.66 million TEU in 2025 and sold a record 56.77 million tonnes of bunker fuel.
Sanctions and anti-money laundering checks apply to the financing of such flows, and they are treated in their own sections.
Start with credit chains between Europe, India, China and the archipelago, the section on trade finance or sanctions.
Oil: Refining, Storage and Asian Price Benchmarks
Singapore has no oil of its own. Read more Singapore · Commodity TradingRefining on Pulau Bukom and Jurong Island
The oil business of Singapore began as a storage and distribution trade. In the early 1890s the London firm M. Read more Singapore · Commodity TradingStorage and blending
Storage is the second pillar of the oil hub. Read more Singapore · Commodity TradingPrice assessment and Asian benchmarks
Oil products in Asia are rarely sold at a fixed price. Most term contracts and many spot deals set the price by reference to published assessments, usually averaged over a pricing period. Read more Singapore · Commodity TradingPaper markets and derivatives
The physical market in Singapore is surrounded by a much larger paper market. Read more Singapore · Commodity TradingEnergy transition and the refining sector
Refineries and crackers are among the largest emitters of greenhouse gases in Singapore. Read more Singapore · Commodity TradingOil: Refining, Storage and Asian Price Benchmarks: practical consequences
For lawyers and advisers, the oil hub creates a recognisable set of questions. Read more Singapore · Commodity TradingComparison with Geneva and other oil centres
The Geneva volume describes how independent oil traders established themselves in Switzerland from the 1960s and 1970s. Read more Singapore · Commodity TradingOil: Refining, Storage and Asian Price Benchmarks: summary
Singapore’s oil business began in the early 1890s with a kerosene depot on Pulau Bukom and turned into refining when Shell opened the first refinery there on 26 July 1961, followed by Mobil, Esso… Read more Singapore · Trade Finance and RiskTrade Finance in Singapore
A cargo of fuel oil loaded at a terminal on Jurong Island, a parcel of Indonesian thermal coal sold to a power plant in southern China, a shipment of palm oil bound for India: each of these… Read more Singapore · Trade Finance and RiskTransactional trade finance
The core idea of transactional trade finance is simple. Read more Singapore · Trade Finance and RiskBorrowing base and structured commodity finance
The large and medium-sized trading houses rarely finance their business transaction by transaction. Read more Singapore · Trade Finance and RiskThe role of the local and foreign banks
The three Singapore banking groups, DBS, OCBC and UOB, have deep roots in trade finance. OCBC descends from the Chinese banks of the early twentieth century, whose history Chapter B.III traces. Read more Singapore · Trade Finance and RiskDigitalisation of trade documents
International trade still runs largely on paper. A single shipment may require dozens of documents, many of them originals that must be couriered between continents. Read more Singapore · Trade Finance and RiskThe retreat of lenders after 2020
The year 2020 was the worst in the modern history of Singapore’s trade finance market. Read more Singapore · Trade Finance and RiskTrade Finance in Singapore: practical consequences
A trader seeking finance in Singapore today must expect scrutiny of its governance and controls that goes far beyond the review of a decade ago. Read more Singapore · Trade Finance and RiskTrade Finance in Singapore: Comparison with Geneva
Geneva and Singapore are the two leading centres of commodity trade finance outside London, with overlapping banks, instruments and case law. Read more Singapore · Trade Finance and RiskTrade Finance in Singapore: summary
Trade finance in Singapore rests on self-liquidating credit secured on goods: documentary credits, collections, trust receipts, guarantees and receivables. Read more Singapore · Trade Finance and RiskThe 2020 Collapses: Hin Leong, Agritrade and ZenRock
In the first half of 2020 three Singapore commodity traders collapsed within a few months of one another. Agritrade International, a palm oil and coal house, failed in February. Read more Singapore · Trade Finance and RiskHin Leong Trading
Hin Leong Trading, founded in 1963 by Lim Oon Kuin, grew from supplying diesel to fishing boats into one of Asia’s largest independent oil traders. Read more Singapore · Trade Finance and RiskAgritrade International
Agritrade International began in 1979 as a family-run palm oil trading firm and later expanded into coal. Read more Singapore · Trade Finance and RiskZenRock Commodities Trading
ZenRock was founded in Singapore in 2014 by a group of experienced oil traders, among them Xie Chun and Tony Lin. Read more Singapore · Trade Finance and RiskInsolvency, criminal proceedings and bank losses
In all three cases the courts used judicial management, the Singapore procedure in which an independent insolvency practitioner takes over the management of a company to preserve its business or… Read more Singapore · Trade Finance and RiskLessons for controls and due diligence
The authorities responded through the banking industry and avoided new legislation. Read more Singapore · Trade Finance and RiskThe 2020 Collapses: Hin Leong, Agritrade and ZenRock: the comparison with Geneva
The fraud cases of 2020 occurred in Singapore and Dubai, but their costs fell on banks in several financial centres, among them Geneva. Read more Singapore · Trade Finance and RiskThe 2020 Collapses: Hin Leong, Agritrade and ZenRock: summary
In the first half of 2020 Agritrade International, Hin Leong Trading and ZenRock Commodities Trading collapsed amid allegations that they had obtained bank finance with falsified accounts, forged or… Read more