In supply chain finance, the risk sits as much with the manufacturer that receives the deposit as with the importer that repays. Checking both sides before the order is placed keeps SMEs out of court and, counterintuitively, makes deals faster.
Most financial institutions look only at the party they hand money to. However, in import finance, that covers only half of the risk. When a specific shipment is paid for, the risk is just as real on the factory's side, receiving the prepayment. A dishonest supplier or an untransparent supply chain is a real threat for small and mid-sized businesses, and it can end in court. That is why, in my view, compliance in trade finance and supply chain finance (SCF) is not overhead. It is the foundation on which the whole product stands.
The capital problem comes with a risk problem
A growing SME can find a supplier and a buyer. What it rarely has is the capital, the logistics network, or the counterparty-verification systems to scale on its own. When it pays for a purchase entirely by itself, the money is out of circulation for as long as the goods are in transit (usually it takes from six to nine weeks). A distributor on thin margins cannot grow its order volumes or respond to demand until the previous shipment has arrived and sold. Bank lending rarely helps smaller companies: the process is slow, and decisions take weeks.
SCF answers the liquidity side. Take Done case as an example: it buys goods from the manufacturer on the client's behalf, pays the factory, and coordinates shipping, customs clearance, and storage. The client pays roughly 40% upfront; Done covers the remaining 60%, and ownership passes to the client only once payment is settled in full. But whoever pays for the factory is now exposed to the factory.
Check both sides, before the order
That is why Done audits both parties to every transaction. Clients go through KYC (Know Your Customer) checks, beneficial-ownership verification, and sanctions-list screening. Suppliers are verified through international systems such as AsiaVerify and World-Check (of London Stock Exchange Group) for legal status, reputation, and consistency with their declared line of business. Payments are controlled to rule out questionable routing, and the goods are inspected for existence and quality.
The point is prevention. A courtroom is a poor place to find out who your counterparty was. The aim is to shield clients from lawsuits and disputes at the deal-planning stage and, because every step is backed by verified data, to make the business predictable and resilient to external shocks.
More checks, faster decisions
It might seem that verifying two parties instead of one slows a transaction down. The opposite is true. Risk assessment here is built not on a stack of certificates and collateral but on data about the transaction itself: payment discipline, shipment history, product category and turnover speed. The longer a relationship lasts, the fuller the client's profile becomes, the less paperwork both client and supplier handle, and the faster decisions are made compared with traditional bank underwriting. Clients receive their goods quickly not despite the checks, but because of them.
What it makes possible
The model works at scale: more than 400 companies across Eastern Europe and the Black Sea region order from 1,800 manufacturers in Europe and Asia, with close to 4,000 orders completed since 2022 and financial statements independently audited by Grant Thornton AG. No single deal or partner determines the state of the business, so clients keep their supply stable even when one partner underperforms.
For a growing SME, the ability to buy one more container of goods is not simply an operational decision. It can mean entering a new market, or the difference between keeping a client and losing one while a competitor waits on a bank loan. In trade finance, compliance is what makes that extra container possible.
About Done
Founded in 2011, Done, a group of companies, today operates in four markets through four legal entities — LLC Dann in Ukraine, Done Polska Sp. z o.o., Done Global Dış Ticaret A.Ş. in Türkiye, and Done Switzerland AG. The group has run more than 4,000 trade transactions with 1,808 suppliers and manufacturers across the globe, with zero non-payments on record since it started. It closed 2025 with 417 clients worldwide, $315 million in annual turnover. Türkiye is Done’s fourth market after Switzerland, Poland, and Ukraine, and the group is also exploring further market opportunities across nearby regions for the year ahead.
Anton Skorobogatov, former owner of LLC Dann (Ukraine), Member of the Board of Done Türkiye
