Tuesday, August 26th, 2014

Investment banking in the main Asian centres of Singapore and Hong Kong is in the doldrums, with many formerly profitable product areas doing little if any business. However trade finance in general and forfaiting in particular are offering some rays of hope. “Many exporters need funding,” explains Charles Brough, chairman of ITFA’s South Asia Regional […]

Tuesday, August 26th, 2014

Representatives of banks throughout the Central and Eastern Europe Region attended the half-day educational course on UCP600, held in Vienna on 29th January. At the event, hosted by Bank Austria, Radek Dobas, the highly experienced Head of Documentary Payments at Ceska Sporitelna, spoke about the International Chamber of Commerce rules for documentary credits set out […]

Tuesday, August 26th, 2014

Almost 100 people attended the event that took place at Accountants Hall in the City of London on Thursday evening 5th February. Those invited had been drawn from around the Northern European region and represented a good cross section of the market. “Even if funding is presenting difficulties to finalising transactions, the strong turn out […]

Tuesday, August 26th, 2014

The new chairman of ITFA’s Southern Europe Regional Committee (SERC), Demetris Zouzoukis, is leading an initiative to share information and common concerns for the good of all members in the region during the current financial crisis. Zouzoukis, Deputy General Manager and Head of Forfaiting at Athens based Marfin Factors & Forfaiters, is currently convening a […]

Tuesday, August 26th, 2014

The document, produced by the ITFA’s Market Practice Committee and lawyers Denton Wilde Sapte, is designed primarily for new entrants to the market. It also reflects the views of a number of ITFA members both in form and content as well as those of the Forfaiting Task Force set up within the International Chamber of […]

Tuesday, August 26th, 2014

We are receiving reports, that because prices of certain goods and commodities have been moving against buyers, some are unilaterally canceling letters of credit. We understand that the L/Cs emanate from a variety of markets and are affecting overseas suppliers who are not being consulted by their customers in advance of shipping commodities. This is […]

Tuesday, August 26th, 2014

Twenty-eight people from all over the world attended the forfaiting seminar in Prague on 2nd and 3rd September, ahead of the conference. The course, which spanned two half-days, was an introduction to best practice in forfaiting and covered, among other things, risk assessment, how to carry out discount calculations, documentary issues and considerations of how […]

Tuesday, August 26th, 2014

ITFA’s Prague conference was one of the most successful in the nine-year history of the Association. The 185 attendees from 34 countries gathered at the Intercontinental Hotel on Wednesday 3rd September in the historic Czech Republic capital for the two-day event, which culminated in cocktail reception and gala dinner at St. Agnes Monastery. At the […]

Tuesday, August 26th, 2014

If you have had trouble accessing some of the material on the ITFA website over recent weeks, we are pleased to tell you that we have now fixed the problems. Following relaunch of the site there were one or two teething problems and our technicians have now sorted them out. But if you feel that […]

Tuesday, August 26th, 2014

The 364-day facility will be used to finance Transcapital’s customers’ trade contacts and was priced at a margin of 2.95%. It was brought to market by Banco Finantia S.A., Commerzbank AG and VTB Bank (Deutschland) AG in mid-June. By the time of loan-signing five weeks later, subscriptions had reached US$70m with Raiffeisen Zentralbank Osterreich AG […]

Tuesday, August 26th, 2014

Norbert, who works for HVB in Munich, has completed two three-year terms on ITFA’s Board and therefore under our Board mandate he is obliged to step down. But we will miss him. “He has brought to ITFA his three decades of experience of trade finance and forfaiting, as well as playing a vital role on […]

Tuesday, August 26th, 2014

Investkredit is part of Volksbank Group and is responsible for its corporate and real estate business. It has offices in 7 countries in Central and South Eastern Europe including Czech Republic, Poland, Romania, Slovakia and Ukraine and has a well-developed capability in international structured and trade finance. The bank’s business streams include providing advice on […]