CHAIRMAN’S MESSAGE – Sean Edwards, ITFA Chairman / Head of Legal And Special Adviser To The Global Trade Finance Department At SMBC, Dec 2022

Dear Members and Friends,

As we come to the end of another year, let me first take the opportunity to thank all those who attended our Seminar and Christmas Cocktail Party, on 5^th December at the Savage Garden in London and equally, to all those who attended the ITFA Americas year end event at The Yale Club, New York City. Apart from giving the opportunity to network and catch up with old and new friends, for the ITFA Board, this event also means an opportunity to express our thanks to you, our members, for your continuous support and enthusiasm. All ITFA members may access the seminar video and events photos by clicking here (Member Area (itfa.org)). Record numbers helped us close out what has been a torrid year for trade but a very active one for ITFA with a high point at our Porto annual conference in September.  

As I write this message, the events for 2023 are already being lined up, for what we expect to be another successful year in terms of networking and knowledge sharing events. The 2023 Events Calendar can be viewed on our ITFA website and will be updated on an ongoing basis. Please click here (» ITFA Events 2023)

This leads me to making reference to our flagship annual conference! As announced earlier on, the 49th ITFA International Trade and Forfaiting Conference will be held in Abu Dhabi between the 11^th and 13^th October 2023 » The 49th Annual International Trade And Forfaiting Conference – Abu Dhabi, 2023 (itfa.org), so I urge you to SAVE THE DATE! Please stay tuned by following us on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/company/itfa-org/ for instant updates. For this year we are planning to have the Educational Session spread over one full day. I’m thrilled to report that we already have a number of confirmed sponsors as well as receiving lots of interest from repeat sponsors and new ones. Whilst thanking those who have already pledged their support, should your institution wish to sponsor this event, we encourage you to reach out to us by sending an email on info@itfa.org. We aim to make Abu Dhabi even more sustainable than Porto.  

In this month’s edition of our newsletter, we report on our recent events in New York and Vienna. We publish an interesting view on Russo-Ukraine War. On the digitisation front, we outline how ITFA’s DNI and TFD market initiatives contribute to the interoperability challenges in trade finance.

On membership, we are pleased to announce the following institution has joined our ever-growing association: Latham & Watkins

We look forward to hearing from you with any feedback you may want to share with us by sending an email to myself, any of the Board Members or to our general email, info@itfa.org.

On behalf of the ITFA board may I take the opportunity to wish you all the best for the festive season and a successful 2023!

Kind regards,

Sean Edwards

ITFA Chairman