VIDEO: Post-mortem analysis on Greensill and other cases studies - Trade Finance Global

VIDEO: Post-mortem analysis on Greensill and other cases studies

By Joana Fabiao

Joana Fabiao is the Marketing Manager at Trade Finance Global (TFG). She holds a BA in International Business from the University of Westminster, with a core focus on Global Economic Issues, International Financial Management and Organisational Behaviour. She also holds a certificate in Bloomberg Market Concepts. Prior to working at TFG she worked as Junior Consultant in the Marketing and Events Department at Westminster Business Consultants, focusing on their social media campaigns, content and marketing strategy.

Last updated on 22 Nov 2021

05 Nov 2021 1 min reading time

Key Themes:

Our editor Deepesh Patel had the pleasure of moderating a panel on Greensill at FCI’s 53rd Virtual Annual Meeting 2021.

The panel included:

Sean Edwards, Chairman, ITFA, UK
Igor Zaks, President, Tenzor, Canada
Thomas Dunn, Chairman, Orbian, UK

This post-mortem analysis was a tricky one, given that the collapse of Softbank-backed Greensill Capital is still an unfolding story.

However, we must not forget the real-economy importance of supply chain finance and payables techniques, particularly in terms of the post-pandemic recovery, as well as their role in helping smaller businesses getting paid sooner.

The industry has seen its fair share of sensationalist ‘celeb worthy headlines, finger-pointing, and prime minister scandals.

But as FT’s Robert Smith highlighted earlier, factoring is supposed to be a non-sexy, low-yielding, and stable business, so what on earth happened?

The panel discussed what supply chain finance is (or isn’t); the ‘fin’ versus the ‘tech’; the potential mis-selling of these techniques for beneficial accounting treatment; and what this could mean for the future of supply chain finance, from many different perspectives.