”COLLABORATION AT ITS BEST” – HOW OUR STRATEGIC TRADE FINANCE INITIATIVES PUT IT TO WORK, Nov 2021

By André Casterman, Founder, Casterman Advisory and Chair of Fintech Committee, ITFA

A total of 200+ ITFA members flocked to Bristol on Wednesday October 6th to attend the ITFA Annual Conference which started with a half-day Fintech briefing. This was our 3rd edition that we organised following a good start in Cape Town (2018) and a 2nd one in Budapest (2019).

Many fintechs knocked on my door as they wanted to showcase their product to our FI membership during this pre-conference seminar. However, this half-day briefing was not meant to be a product roadshow, but rather an opportunity for our membership to catch up on the progress achieved – as a community – on our strategic fintech market initiatives. This year, we had much to report on both DNI Initiative and TFD Initiative.

We started with an update on the Fintech Committee itself which has grown substantially during the pandemic and which has become the largest community of technology providers:

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Collaboration at its best” was the theme of the whole briefing as we aimed to demonstrate how advanced value propositions are now being delivered by combining new technologies with established ones. 

We started with the DNI Initiative which has become the most specialised community of technology providers supporting MLETR-compatible laws and trade instruments.

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We continued with the TFD Initiative which has become the largest business community of trade originators, funding platforms, credit insurers, institutional investors and service providers committed to increasing the level of automation, accessibility and transparency in trade asset and risk distribution through technology-based market practices. 

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Other important technology themes were covered during the fintech morning briefing and further debated during the whole conference. They focused on automated document checking as well as the use of “open banking” practices by trade eco-systems (e.g., bill of lading and SCF platforms).

Key insights included:

Additional sessions related to fintech members took place during the whole conference and focused on policy developments (e.g., interoperable bills of lading, electronic bills of exchange). The below chart provides the list of institutions who were involved in fintech related sessions in Bristol. We thank them all for their active involvement.

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