TFG’s Editor Deepesh Patel spoke to Stacey Facter, BAFT’s Senior Vice President for Trade Products, during BAFT’s Global Annual Meeting, held in Frankfurt from January 13-15, 2020. Anti-money laundering (AML) and sanctions were key compliance themes at the meeting, so TFG caught up to discuss how these could be tackled moving forward, and what’s in stock for 2020.

Currency is part and parcel of monetary policy, and a public mandate of the European Central Bank (ECB). TFG’s Editor, Deepesh Patel, spoke to ECB’s Yves Mersch about the possibilities of central bank digital currencies in relation to payment systems, faster transaction times and settlements. Separating the hype from reality; Mersch spoke to TFG about the regulatory consequences of central bank digital currencies. “We are tech neutral. We want to stay ahead of tech. Tech has to serve our purpose, not the other way around.”

How do fintechs work with banks, and how can we rethink the customer journey for trade finance? TFG spoke to industry experts, in partnership with Finastra.

TFG’s Deepesh Patel spoke to Matthew Beckett, Director of Insurance Placement at SMBC at Excred London. As trade risks and uncertainty abounds, we asked SMBC about how appetite has changed in 2019, and whether additional liquidity has impacted the distribution and origination business.

TFG spoke to Stephen Renna, Chief Banking Officer at US Exim Bank at TXF CPRI in London, about the core priorities and focus for the bank in order to facilitate US exports, now that is has a wider remit to promote US SMEs.

We caught up with Robert Nijhout, from ICISA, about the trends in the surety bond markets and the technological changes in the trade landscape.

Master Risk Participation Agreements Explained – An ITFA View. Unfunded versus funded MRPA and BAFT vs ITFA MPA

TFG hear Frederic Bourgeois , Managing Director for CoFace for UK and Ireland, about the importance of specific insurance policies for the securitisation of trade receivables. He spoke about the trends and changes in the insurance of trade receivables.

Trade Finance Global caught up with Head of Macroeconomic Research, Ana Boata at Euler Hermes last month at The Institute of Export & International Trade’s World Trade Summit. A very interesting macroeconomic view on how households, retail and economic growth has changed in 2019 due to trade wars, Brexit and business uncertainty.

We spoke to the Finastra’s CEO Simon Paris about the future of trade and challenges of capitalism, during the World Trade Symposium at New York. We discussed key themes around bilateralism and multilateralism in global trade and why we need to turn our eyes to plurilateralism. A typical SME trade finance transaction is $25,000, but the average cost to trade finance instruments is $4,000 and this is not particularly helpful in addressing the trade finance gap. Is the technology the remedy here?