Trading and data: satellites, models, platforms

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Commodity trading is the business of the financial centre in which data has transformed practice most profoundly. The Geneva trading houses use satellite imagery to estimate harvests, stock levels and ship movements, vessel-positioning data to track flows, weather models to anticipate energy demand and econometric models to forecast prices. They employ teams of data scientists whose size rivals that of the trading desks.¹ This analytical capacity has become a decisive competitive advantage, and it partly explains why trading has become concentrated among a handful of large houses able to shoulder the cost.

The automation of operations is advancing more slowly, because physical trading still consists of contracts, documents and counterparties whose digitisation depends on a great many participants. Electronic document platforms, described in Chapter I, contract and logistics management systems, and data exchanges with banks, inspectors and insurers are developing, bringing the gains in security that the frauds of 2020 made desirable. For the Geneva centre, what matters is that these infrastructures are organised with its participation, for otherwise they will be organised in Singapore or London and the Geneva cluster will depend on them.

Notes

Wikipedia (en), art. “Kayrros”: environmental intelligence company founded in Paris in 2016, which uses satellite imagery (notably from the European Space Agency’s Copernicus satellites) and artificial intelligence to monitor methane and carbon dioxide emissions, carbon sinks and climate risks, as well as fossil-fuel supply chains; its data are used by UNEP’s International Methane Emissions Observatory and by the International Energy Agency; EUR 40 million raised in March 2022 (Bpifrance, BNP Paribas, NewSpace Capital, European Investment Bank), for a total of EUR 72 million since 2016. ↩

For general information only. This article does not constitute legal or tax advice, does not replace advice on an individual case and creates no lawyer-client relationship. It reflects the legal position as of September 2025.

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Dr Alexander Ressos, TEP

Rechtsanwalt/Attorney-at-Law

I am a Swiss attorney-at-law and also admitted as a solicitor in Hong Kong and in England & Wales, with almost 25 years of experience.

Together with my multilingual team, including Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Russian, Ukrainian and French native speakers, I advise companies and their owners from around the world on the full range of banking, corporate, commercial and tax law matters in Switzerland, including international tax planning, fiduciary services, and legal family office services including immigration & relocation or real estate investments. My practice has a particular focus on clients from growth and frontier markets in Greater China, Central Asia and the Caucasus, the rest of Asia, the Middle East, Africa and Latin America, and I equally advise clients from Europe and North America. Through an affiliated Swiss trust company, we also take care of the incorporation and ongoing administration of their companies and other structures, including accounting, tax returns and corporate secretarial services, and I serve as a professional director where required. With the support of a network of first-class cooperation partners, I also implement solutions worldwide.

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Trading and data: satellites, models, platforms

Notes

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