ITFA PARTNERED WITH GTR DURING THE GTR MENA, DUBAI, Mar 2023

Contributed by the ITFA Board

The ITFA Board was delighted to support GTR at their GTR MENA conference in Dubai in February – the first fully in-person large-scale event in Dubai for many of us since the pandemic. ITFA had a great presence at the event, with both our Board and Regional Committee in attendance, and ITFA sponsored the evening networking reception at the end of Day 1 of the conference as a pre-cursor to our Annual Conference being held in Abu Dhabi in October 2023.

Our Board members contributed to a number of the discussions during the conference. Chris Hall was first up on Finding the positives – the growth of trade credit in the region, a well-attended discussion looking at how credit insurance can be an enabler of business, as well as reflecting on how the market has evolved. Simon Cook moderated Ensuring food security – a renewed priority, which was particularly relevant given the events in Ukraine and the impact on the bread-basket of Europe. Excitingly, after lunch on the second day ITFA hosted a Middle East Regional Committee Seminar, with attendees welcomed by Sean Edwards and Fatenah El Danab, the chair of the Middle East Regional Committee.

Andre Casterman moderated a discussion on the adoption of electronic negotiable instruments, which was particularly relevant given how quickly a number of the GCC jurisdictions have adopted the standards and the panel talked around how banks can go about doing more of this and grow their SCF business using electronic bills of exchange.

Sean Edwards and Lorna Pillow introduced attendees to the new Uniform Rules for Electronic Payment Obligations (URTEPO) and discussed how the Uniform Rules have evolved. The Seminar concluded with a discussion on the introduction of tokenisation into capital markets and trade finance and then how instant payments and stablecoins can support trade transactions.

The best-attended GTR MENA yet was a great example to showcase the depth of ITFA’s market presence and developments and gave attendees a taste of what they can expect to see when they join us in Abu Dhabi in October – ITFA Conference 2023 – Abu Dhabi | 11-13 Oct.