ITFA attracts 20 new members during first half of 2020

The ITFA community has been busy since the start of the lockdown as we progressed our activities and initiatives on line. Being able to re-group the community through our webinars has been very exciting. We hope you enjoyed those educational opportunities as much as we did.

We are particularly delighted to welcome a total of 20 new members during this first half of 2020, and to witness that newcomers represent a wide mix of industry stakeholders.

“We wholeheartedly welcome those 20 new joiners to the ITFA community. They represent the different types of industry stakeholders such as banks, alternative lenders, fintechs as well as law firms and consultancies, and demonstrate the richness of our industry. New members join from Singapore, India, Egypt, Estonia, Sweden, Italy, The Netherlands, Belgium, Spain and the UK.”, says Sean Edwards, Chair of ITFA and Head of Legal at SMBC Europe.

Andre Casterman, Chair of Fintech Committee, ITFA; CMO, INTIX and NED, Tradeteq welcomes a total of 6 new fintech members joining the association. Andre highlights: “The 31-strong committee is expanding its scope to include new technology products in areas such as collateral management, freight forwarding, digital assets and tokenization. We now also cover technology integration services recognising the importance to insert new technology options within existing processes and infrastructures”. He adds: “It is fascinating to witness the vast number of collaboration opportunities amongst our 31 fintech members, as already evidenced through our technology initiatives and regulatory task force”.

The ITFA membership grows with:

• 7 bank members: Belfius, Scandinaviska Enskilda Banken (SEB), BankInter, National Bank of Egypt, Credito Emiliano (Credem), APS Bank and VTB Bank;
• 6 technology members: Beacon, Hitachi Vantara, Receivables Exchange of India (RXIL), Tinubu Square, Triquesta and XinFin Network;
• 3 alternative lenders: Falcon Group, Stenn International, Structured Commodity and Corporate Finance;
• 2 law firms: Clyde & Co and Mayer Brown;
• 2 advisory firms: Trade Advisory Network (TAN) and Trade & Working Capital (TWC).

Atul Khekade, Co-founder of XinFin Network shares his enthusiasm as new ITFA member seeking to help ITFA’s core bank membership and fintechs: “Tokenization of trade instruments brings liquidity from various types of funders to the trade finance market enabling MSMEs with critical liquidity support to sustain and grow following the recent pandemic and economic slowdown. We aim to power financial institutions and technology platforms with our digital asset technology which is why we joined ITFA and contribute to the DNI Initiative”.

Sara de la Torre, Director, Digital Transformation, Hitachi Vantara says “As a technology, financial services and manufacturing business, Hitachi is intrinsically linked to trade finance. ITFA presents itself as an excellent forum where Hitachi can add value to financial institutions, corporations and fintech businesses by providing asset based consulting, systems integration and technology enablement. At Hitachi we believe that the trade finance organisations are ready to embrace digital transformation and we are well positioned to support them in this journey”.

Koen Vierendeels, Head of Trade Finance, Belfius adds: “Being one of the major banks in Belgium, Belfius wants to be meaningful and inspiring for its customers by providing strong and relevant trade expertise. Therefore, ITFA membership is a great means to network with the broader trade finance community, to share great ideas amongst the ITFA members and as such to foster innovation in our industry”.

Joost Loves, MD Business Development and Sales, Triquesta adds: “We power financial institutions with risk, collateral and capital management solutions. Joining ITFA is very important to support our expansion objectives and collaboration with the major institutions”.

We look forward to meeting our new members during our next webinars and future networking events. Please consult our membership directory for a full list of current members.