http://www.forfaiters.org/news News articles en Copyright 2008 2008-08-26T10:21:00+00:00 http://www.forfaiters.org/news/archives/website_improvements/ If you have had trouble accessing some of the material on the IFA website over recent weeks, we are pleased to tell you that we have now fixed the problems. Following relaunch of the site there were one or two teething problems and our technicians have now sorted them out. But if you feel that the IFA website is not providing you with what you expect or you have some suggestions as to how we might make further improvements please let us know at info@forfaiters.org 2008-08-26T09:21:00+00:00 http://www.forfaiters.org/news/archives/transcapitalbank_syndication_massively_over_subscribed/ The 364-day facility will be used to finance Transcapital’s customers’ trade contacts and was priced at a margin of 2.95%. It was brought to market by Banco Finantia S.A., Commerzbank AG and VTB Bank (Deutschland) AG in mid-June. By the time of loan-signing five weeks later, subscriptions had reached US$70m with Raiffeisen Zentralbank Osterreich AG having joined the facility as a mandated lead arranger and a total of 21 banks participating in the deal. B1-rated Transcapitalbank based in Moscow is 25% owned by the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development. It has 15 branches, and 41 additional offices in various parts of Russia. It is ranked 53rd by assets among the country’s banks. The success of this syndication in more than doubling the initial funds sought, demonstrates the popularity of short-dated trade-related facilities in the current market. 2008-08-26T09:19:00+00:00 http://www.forfaiters.org/news/archives/our_thanks_to_norbert_fritsch/ Norbert, who works for HVB in Munich, has completed two three-year terms on IFA’s Board and therefore under our Board mandate he is obliged to step down. But we will miss him. “He has brought to IFA his three decades of experience of trade finance and forfaiting, as well as playing a vital role on the board as our treasurer,” says IFA Chairman, Lucio Matassoni. “He’s really been very supportive towards myself and the IFA Board in general. We’re very grateful for the work he has put in over the last six years.” In that time Norbert says that he has seen the membership of IFA grow considerably. He says the products and structures now used by forfaiters have continued to evolve such that the days of the “10 by 6” traditional prom note discount now seem like history.  Having attended the launch of the India and South Asia Regional Committee in Singapore earlier this year he adds that he is optimistic about the growth of forfaiting. “I saw plenty of new participants from emerging markets in the Far East and that is very healthy for the market. We are also lucky that our market has suffered relatively few problems with transactions and that is partly due to the work of IFA in establishing strong market practices.” We thank Norbert for his work on the Board and the part that he has played in making our market what it is today. 2008-08-26T09:13:00+00:00 http://www.forfaiters.org/news/archives/prague_conference_and_agm_election_news/ This year in Prague, IFA is expecting a strong turnout for the conference as in previous years. Attendees, who are the who’s who of the forfaiting market, are coming for all over the world. At the same time there will be an important change to the constituents of IFA’s board. This year three board members will step down. They are Norbert Frisch of HVB in Munich, who will retire from the board after completing the maximum of two three-year terms on the board. Sema Zeyneloglu of Rabobank, Amsterdam and Paolo Provera of ABC International Bank in Milan will have completed their three-year terms and will stand for re-election. Meanwhile Charles Brough of HVB Singapore and David Lilley of SMBC London are both standing for election to the IFA board. Members are invited to cast their votes at the AGM, which takes place during the conference at 15:00 on Thursday 4th September. Meanwhile with barely a month to go, anyone who has not yet signed up for the conference should get their application in while places are still available. Please contact International Conference Solutions Ltd. at Tel: + 44 208 515 7959 
Fax: + 44 208 427 5136 or
register on-line at http://www.intl-solutions.com/ifa 2008-08-05T11:58:00+00:00 http://www.forfaiters.org/news/archives/investkredit_bank_joins_ifa/ Investkredit is part of Volksbank Group and is responsible for its corporate and real estate business. It has offices in 7 countries in Central and South Eastern Europe including Czech Republic, Poland, Romania, Slovakia and Ukraine and has a well-developed capability in international structured and trade finance. The bank’s business streams include providing advice on international project structuring. It’s trade finance operations include traditional L/Cs, bank guarantees, collections and, of course, forfaiting. It also operates in the field of internationalisation subsidy programmes and structured export and commodity finance. Investkredit is increasingly active in these sectors of the market and is interested to work with new partners who are IFA members. Key contacts at Investkredit are: Mrs. Nadia Dax Executive Director Structured International and Export Finance Tel. +43/1/53 1 35-660 dax@investkredit.at Mr. Joachim Neuner Structured Export and Commodity Finance Tel.: +43/1/53 1 35-675 neuner@investkredit.at 2008-08-05T11:41:00+00:00 http://www.forfaiters.org/news/archives/the_receivables_exchange_joins_ifa/ New IFA member The Receivables Exchange is a platform established to give private companies rapid access to working capital. Headquartered in New Orleans with an office in New York, qualifying companies can list their invoices on The Receivables Exchange where capital providers bid to buy the receivables. The Exchange’s target is the massive accounts receivable marketplace, which the founders say is worth US$17 trillion in annual business-to-business trade in the USA alone. Paul Ellis, Vice President Institutional Sales says, “We are looking to create an entirely new way for the world’s premiere capital providers to connect with millions of private companies who could benefit from a more flexible way to gain access to capital.” He adds that joining the IFA is an important step for the firm. “We look forward to providing IFA Members with a significant and alternative origination source.” Those who would like to learn more about The Receivables Exchange can visit its website: http://www.therecievablesexchange.com and Paul Ellis can reached at 001 504.208.1926 2008-08-05T11:03:00+00:00 http://www.forfaiters.org/news/archives/ifa_website_redesign1/ Work is currently being carried out to improve the IFA website and make several changes to enhance the user experience.  We apologise for the inconvenience this may cause, and reassure users that this should only be a minor disruption which should be completed over the next few days. 2008-07-21T16:30:00+00:00 http://www.forfaiters.org/news/archives/update_on_structured_commodity_trade_finance_asia_conference/ The IFA Association kindly encourage a representative of your esteemed bank to subscribe the IFA co-sponsored event on “Structured Commodity & Trade Finance Asia” conference on 26-28 August 2008 in Singapore and hereby thank you in advance if you could make sure to pass the subject information to any of your local branches and/or colleagues who may be interested in attending. Special discount for IFA attendees: be also kindly informed that the special discount will end on 28th July 2008. Should you need further information on the special discount and priority registration, kindly contact: IFA International Forfaiting Association P.O Box 432 Othmarstrasse 8 CH-8024 Zurich Switzerland Phone +41 43 222 47 60 email: chiappinelli@forfaiting.ch 2008-07-15T04:54:00+00:00 http://www.forfaiters.org/news/archives/ifa_launches_india_and_south_asia_regional_committee/ More than 70 delegates attended a reception in Singapore on 6th June to mark the inauguration of IFA’s new India and South Asia Regional Committee. The attendees represented the major banks and forfaiting houses in the region, most of which are based in Singapore. The new Committee’s chairman, Unicredit Singapore’s Charles Brough, comments that to run an event attended by 70 people on a Friday evening was “quite an achievement.” “This demonstrates that more and more people are interested in forfaiting,” says Brough. “Forfaiting is expanding in the region and is now a mainline product in many banks. There are good profits to be made in forfaiting here as margins are expanding and quite a few of the banks have now established dedicated forfaiting units.” IFA Chairman Lucio Matassoni, Board Members Paolo Provera and Norbert Fritsch, and David Lilley, Chairman of the Northern European Regional Committee, attended the event. Lucio Matassoni commented, “This is fantastic for forfaiting. The economies of India and a number of other countries in South Asia are growing rapidly and the forfaiting product is playing its part in supporting and fuelling this growth. That we had so many attendees at the launch party demonstrates just how relevant forfaiting is and how many financial institutions are embracing the product there.” The India and South Asia Regional Committee is comprised of three members, Rakshith Kundha of ICICI Bank, Yip Wai Har of Natixis, and Charles Brough of Unicredit. For further information please e-mail: charles.brough@apr.unicreditgroup.eu , rakshith.kundha@icicibank.com or wai-har.yip@ap.natixis.com 2008-06-30T10:41:00+00:00 http://www.forfaiters.org/news/archives/icc_supports_ifa/ The Paris-based multilateral trade body is best known in the forfaiting market for its Uniform Customs and Practice for Documentary Credits and other key rulebooks for facilitating international trade. It has now constituted a Forfaiting Task Force that has commented on the Primary Guide soon to be released by IFA. We expect that the head of the ICC’s Banking Commission, Thierry Senechal, will make a presentation at IFA’s Prague conference in September. In addition the ICC will continue to be a key point of reference assisting IFA to ensure that the conduct of our industry is in line with international standards. Sean Edwards, Co-chairman of IFA’s Market Practice Committee comments, “On the basis of our fruitful experience to date we are currently examining what other work and projects IFA and the ICC can carry out together.” 2008-06-30T10:39:00+00:00 http://www.forfaiters.org/news/archives/final_details_of_annual_conference_expected_shortly/ Those wishing to attend IFA’s 9th Annual conference in Prague from 3rd to 5th September will be receiving programme details in the next few days. In the meantime International Conference Solutions Ltd.
which is organizing the conference will be delighted to handle preliminary enquiries. Contact details are: Tel: + 44 208 515 7959 
Fax: + 44 208 427 5136 
Register on-line http://www.intl-solutions.com/ifa The conference will take place at the InterContinental Hotel, close to the spectacular historic centre of the Czech capital and is expected to be attended by everyone who’s anyone in the forfaiting world. The conference programme is expected to include presentations on the current state of the markets of Central and Eastern Europe; on the IFA primary market document; the latest issues surrounding UCP600 and other subjects of direct relevance to those in the forfaiting community. The climax of the 3-day gathering will be Thursday’s Gala Dinner, the highlight of the forfaiting calendar. This will be held at a magnificent and unique but as yet surprise location that will be completely different from previous years. Attendees will be drawn from across the global forfaiting industry. See you in Prague. 2008-06-12T08:49:00+00:00 http://www.forfaiters.org/news/archives/welcome_to_our_new_look_website/ The International Forfaiting Association has launched its next generation web site with more content and improved navigation We hope our redesigned site will now do a better job of assisting both IFA members and non-members. We’ve updated the content and improved the navigation and aimed to give it a more user-friendly look and feel. Please give us your feedback. We’d like to know if we’ve achieved what we set out to do 2008-06-06T10:15:00+00:00 http://www.forfaiters.org/news/archives/ifa_welcomes_national_bank_of_greece_as_new_member/ The leading Greek financial services group aims to expand its forfaiting business having joined the IFA in April 2008. NBG Group has assets of over €84 billion and operates in 10 countries in South Eastern Europe including Cyprus, Turkey, Romania, Bulgaria and countries of the Former Yugoslavia. It has substantial and longstanding trade finance operations and is aiming to broaden these with additional forfaiting activities. “We want to develop forfaiting business in markets with strong growth opportunities,” explained NBG’s Trade Finance & Payments Group Head, Evy Passa . “Our aim is to contribute to the development of forfaiting in our region and to build sound and profitable relationships with other members of the IFA.” The bank played host to an ICC conference in Athens of 15th & 16th April 2008 and the IFA welcomes NBG as a new member of the Association. We wish Evy and her team every success with the growth of their forfaiting business in one of the most exciting developing regions of Europe. 2008-06-05T13:40:00+00:00 http://www.forfaiters.org/news/archives/education_seminar_ahead_of_prague_conference/ IFA will stage an education course on 2nd and 3rd September ahead of this year’s annual conference in Prague, which will be open to members and non-members of IFA. As the latest in its series of education events, IFA will hold the course at the InterContinental Hotel on the afternoon of Tuesday 2nd and morning of Wednesday 3rd September. It follows similar IFA seminars that have taken place over the last several years in, among other cities, Beijing, Dubai, London, Tunis and Vienna. It is aimed at newcomers to the market, junior staff and others who would like to gain a good, basic grounding in best practice in the forfaiting market. The course will be conducted by IFA’s seminar leader Richard Willsher and will cover risk assessment, discount calculation methods, funding, documentation, settlement and a range of other issues of direct relevance to day-to-day activity in the forfaiting market. This is an interactive course where participants are encouraged to take part in case studies and discussions and also, importantly, to get to know fellow market participants. For full details and to book a place on the course visit http://www.intl-solutions.com/ifa 2008-06-05T13:35:00+00:00 http://www.forfaiters.org/news/archives/atfa_conference_bigger_role_for_forfaiting_as_financial_markets_retrench/ The 11th annual ATFA conference confirmed that forfaiting is playing a bigger part in global supply chain financing in the wake of the credit crunch. The annual conference of the Association of Trade and Forfaiting in the Americas that took place in Miami 21st to 23rd May was attended by 80 delegates. They were drawn from 14 countries including Brazil, Canada, Germany, Italy, Mexico, Panama, Peru, Switzerland, UK and the USA. Also featured were speakers from the US Government’s Department of Commerce as well as from US Export-Import Bank. ATFA President Greg Bernardi notes that this was a noteworthy development as it recognises our industry. He continues, “The Department of Commerce has recently produced a brochure for exporters and both ATFA and the IFA appear in it as good sources of information on trade finance.” Importantly for the current health of forfaiting Greg says, “The banking market has changed dramatically in the last six to nine months. The banks are less liquid and I think forfaiting is now playing a more significant role in the financing of trade. Businesses are looking for support from non-core bank sources.” Meanwhile Greg was attending his last conference as ATFA President with his successor due to be elected at ATFA’s AGM scheduled for New York in November.  He thanks everyone for their support over the three and half a years of his tenure of office. He adds that ATFA is contemplating holding next year’s annual conference in Latin America for the first time, to further broaden the membership base and gain greater exposure for forfaiting in the region. Members looking to attend next year’s conference can e-mail Greg at greg.bernardi@forfaiting.com 2008-06-05T13:30:00+00:00