ITFA / Cass Partnership

ITFA is delighted to announce that it partnered with Cass Business School – City, University of London, to teach a specialist trade finance course, that is part of the Cass MSc curriculum as an elective course.

Cass Business School is one of City, University of London’s five Schools. It is among Europe’s leading business schools and is the global elite of business schools that hold the gold standard of ‘triple-crown’ accreditation. In 2018 Cass Business School ranked 16^th in the Financial Times’ European Business School Rankings (5^th in the UK).

The six specialist trade finance lectures will be delivered by ITFA Board Members and by guest ITFA specialists during the month of June. The 25 registered students will then be assessed through a written group assignment, which will test their ability to put in practice the trade finance tools and techniques learnt throughout the course.

The course outline is as follows:

Lecture 1 – Thursday, 6 June 2019

• Introduction to trade finance (Duarte Pedreira, ITFA Board Member and Head of Trade Finance – Crown Agents Bank)
• Letters of Credit and Guarantees (Duarte Pedreira and Farah Shaikh, ITFA Fintech Committee Member and Head of Trade Operations – Crown Agents Bank)

Lecture 2 – Tuesday, 11 June 2019

• Other simple trade finance instruments (Duarte Pedreira)
• The Power of Structuring (Duarte Pedreira)

Lecture 3 – Thursday 13 June 2019

• Structured trade and commodity finance techniques (Duarte Pedreira)
• Taking security and some related principles in trade finance transactions (Simon Cook, ITFA Africa Regional Committee Member and Partner – Sullivan Law)

Lecture 4 – Monday, 17 June 2019

• Supply Chain Finance (Sean Edwards, ITFA Chairman and Special Adviser to the Trade Finance Department – Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation)
• Forfaiting (Chris Hall, ITFA Board Member and Senior Underwriter – Liberty Special Markets)

Lecture 5 – Tuesday, 25 June 2019

• Trade Finance risk distribution (Zeyno Davutoglu, ITFA Board Member and Head of Financial Institutions and Forfaiting, Credit Europe Bank)
• Credit and political risk insurance (Carol Searle, ITFA Insurance Committee Member and General Counsel – Texel Finance)

Lecture 6 – Thursday 27 June 2019

• New trends in trade finance: fintech, alternative financiers (Andre Casterman, ITFA Board Member and Chief Marketing Officer – INTIX)
• Careers in Trade Finance (ITFA Young Professionals)

ITFA is continuously looking to expand its influence as we craft the next generation of trade financiers. We have made it our commitment to attract new talent to our industry over time and increase the proportion of Young Professionals in Trade Finance, and this is now bearing fruits through a number of different initiatives spearheaded by the ITFA Young Professionals. The partnership with Cass will further reinforce this commitment as we will hopefully equip these 25 aspiring trade financiers to undertake a successful career in our industry.