The credit you deserve — open account made easy

Price, quality and selection drive consumers’ purchasing decisions every day. With this in mind, U.S. companies are continually scouring the globe for new suppliers and innovative products to import and bring to market to meet consumer demand.

With this evolution in global trade, importers require more sophisticated finance solutions to grow their business. Importers face numerous challenges such as managing currencies, restricted supplier terms, and foreign customs and business practices.

CIT can help. As one of the leading providers of trade finance and credit protection services, we work with importers to develop trade finance solutions that help them manage their vendor payments, as well as their retail customer accounts receivable. CIT focuses on finance so you can focus on your business.

Import financing

U.S. importers typically pay for their foreign goods in one of the following ways:

• Cash in advance: This is the least attractive option for importers as it ties up valuable cash flow before the goods are received.
• Letters of Credit: This can be cumbersome, expensive and drain line availability.
• Open account: This is the new method of payment among importers as it enables importers to manage cash flow and their distribution and/or production cycle.

Searching for better payment terms?

CIT may be able to help you secure better payment terms.

• CIT can establish a pre-approved vendor line of credit for your company.
• Offshore suppliers will not perceive trade risk or incur bad debt losses when shipping to your company. This increased peace of mind will strengthen your negotiating power with them.
• By enhancing your payment to suppliers, you may be able to negotiate more favorable terms of sale or pre-payment discounts.
• Importers can inspect goods and raise disputes where necessary.
• There is no charge to you to establish a pre-approved vendor line of credit with CIT.
• Local working capital vendor solutions can be arranged directly or with CIT’s financial partners.

Take advantage of pre-payment Discounts

Even if you currently are paying under open account terms, you may be able to negotiate pre-payment discounts by using CIT to help you speed up payments to your vendors.

CIT’s Electronic Trade Acceptance Draft (E-TAD) program assures that you will pay a specific amount on a specific date.