Innovative credit options now available on Calogi's air cargo portal

When first launched in Dubai in May 2008, the Calogi portal heralded a new era for the air cargo industry. From that launch, with just 53 companies (42 forwarders and 11 airline customers) the membership has grown significantly - today there are almost 1,000 users from almost 400 companies. They total 50% of all export and import transactions with Dnata's FreightGates (who represent over 80 airlines) demonstrating the high level of interest in Dnata's e-freight drive from Dubai's airfreight community.

Constantly reviewing its service and looking for innovative ways of enhancing its provision to members, the Calogi team has this month successfully implemented a new online credit engine called c-Trade. Eagerly awaited by its members, the new facility brings a number of unique benefits.

Airline and GSA members can now efficiently manage their credit accounting activities with their forwarding business partners on a real-time basis. The online credit engine is characterized by greater flexibility - Calogi members can now set up tailor-made credit account criteria for each specific forwarder of their choice, linking 'own-sales' airway bill stock to these accounts.

The successful launch of the new module was preceded by a comprehensive credit module training program for representatives from freight forwarders, cargo forwarders, airlines and GSAs, carried out by the Calogi training team at the dedicated training base in FreightGate-5 earlier this year.

Some of the additional benefits of the online credit module include: the ability for each customer to set credit limits in accordance with the amount of risk they will take on; the set up of 'Spillover' levels - transactions to be completed against the forwarder's own Calogi credit account so payments are guaranteed; the availability of up-to-the-minute online invoices and sales reports for 'own-sales' airway bill stock and the provision of a fully secure online environment allowing forwarders to view their on-line credit status.

Elaborating on the c-Trade features, Patrick Murray, Head of Calogi said "We are very pleased to have achieved this significant milestone in our development programme. We now have almost 1,000 users, all of whom are benefitting from the rich functionality the Calogi Portal offers".

Murray added

"We still many additional features in the pipeline and are currently working on the development of a loyalty programme, an advertising engine, the ability to print an air waybill directly at the terminal and offering the option to all members to implement IATA e-freight using Calogi. We will be sharing the details of these developments with our membership soon."

With c-Trade, forwarders can now take advantage of a range of options depending on the level of Guarantee they wish to supply. The options are:

• Full Bank Guarantee (the customer's credit limit will be automatically equal to the bank guarantee amount plus a 25% overdraft amount to cater for any slight delay in payment processing and crediting of the customer account).
• Partial Bank Guarantee (the customer's credit limit will be the bank guarantee amount plus an additional amount agreed with Calogi, based on the results of a credit risk assessment, plus an extra 25% overdraft amount).
• No Bank Guarantee (the customer's credit limit will be agreed with Calogi entirely based on the results of a credit risk assessment (with no overdraft amount provided initially).
• Direct Debit (where customers are do not wish to submit either a full or partial guarantee or provide creditworthiness references, an option is available to operate a direct debit account. To subscribe to this option, the customer just has to make sufficient funds available in advance of any transaction).

c-Trade also allows forwarder members to view up-to the minute accounting status and outstanding balances. Additionally they can view and print account statements and invoices at their office.