🇰🇪→🇹🇷 Construction & equipmentKenya → Türkiye · 7 min read · Updated July 2026

Buying Machinery from Türkiye with Document-Conditioned Escrow

Representative scenario. This case study describes a typical customer workflow on the KeyBS Pay platform; identifying details are generalised and outcomes are described qualitatively rather than with unverified figures.

The business

Profile: Nairobi construction contractor expanding into mid-size commercial projects
Scale: Growing firm making its first significant capital equipment purchase abroad
Trade footprint: Sourcing concrete and formwork machinery from a Turkish manufacturer identified at a trade fair

The challenge

The equipment order was the largest single purchase in the company’s history, from a manufacturer it had never transacted with, in a country where it had no presence. The Turkish supplier — reasonably — wanted payment security before releasing production capacity; the buyer — equally reasonably — refused to prepay a large sum to an unproven counterparty.

A letter of credit was the textbook answer, but the buyer’s bank quoted issuance requirements and lead times that threatened the project schedule, and the supplier’s preference was against document-heavy LC workflows for an order of this size. The deal was stuck on the classic first-trade trust gap.

The approach

Verify the manufacturer first

Before structuring anything, the buyer ran the supplier through registry-backed verification: MERSIS registration, company standing and beneficiary account-name match. The manufacturer checked out cleanly — which itself changed the tone of negotiations.

Replace the standoff with an escrow structure

The parties agreed a deposit-plus-escrow structure: a production deposit paid directly, with the substantial balance funded into escrow at order confirmation. The supplier could see the funds existed and were committed; the buyer knew they would only release against agreed evidence.

Define the release evidence precisely

Release conditions were written into the escrow terms: clean on-board bill of lading matching the agreed specification and quantity, packing list, and the pre-shipment inspection certificate from an independent inspector at the factory.

Handle the FX leg deliberately

The balance was funded from KES with the EUR-denominated invoice amount locked at quote time, so currency movement during the production window did not change what the supplier would receive or what the project budget carried.

What changed

A first-trade deadlock between two well-intentioned counterparties was resolved without either side carrying unsecured risk on the full amount.
The supplier started production on sight of committed escrow funds — no LC issuance delay, no schedule slip.
The buyer’s exposure was limited to the production deposit until goods were provably on the water and independently inspected.
Release conditions turned quality assurance from a hope into a payment term: the inspection certificate was a documented gate, not a courtesy.
The structure is now the firm’s standard template for any new overseas equipment supplier.