On August 17, BAFT published its 2020 Annual Review Digest covering major activities and achievements for FY2019-2020 including advocacy issues, industry initiatives, thought leadership, educational offerings, events, membership statistics, and more.
The challenges of 2020 have led us all to quickly shift our priorities and methods of operation. Much of the value of BAFT is rooted in personal engagement in various markets. However, we managed to keep our community connected virtually and hosted 29 educational offerings ranging from in-person workshops and conferences to online training, webinars, and virtual events.
Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, the association hosted workshops in three new countries including Côte d’Ivoire, Madagascar and South Korea; as well as traditional in-person events in Beijing, Chicago, Frankfurt, London, Mumbai, New York, Singapore, and Toronto. Since March 2020, BAFT has offered a range of virtual events, which resulted in a three-fold increase in our global event attendance.
We expanded our membership footprint and welcomed 25 new members including 17 banks and 8 solution providers; several of which represent new countries in the BAFT global community including Afghanistan, Belize, Cambodia, Djibouti, Oman, and Taiwan. With 284 members, BAFT membership now collectively represents 63 countries spread across six continents.
Our policy and subject matter experts have continued to drive forward a broad list of issues most important to our members and delivered advocacy wins covering AML Framework Reform, Correspondent Banking De-Risking, Cross-Border Payments, IBOR Transition, Reauthorization of U.S. EXIM Bank, and Supply Chain Finance Practices to name a few. Throughout the year, we continued to promote thought leadership and produced 11 white papers related to trade, innovation, payments, regulation, and transaction banking.
This past year saw BAFT launch two leadership councils to provide additional structure and guidance in member services: the Africa Council covering sub-Saharan Africa and the Global Payments Industry Council covering treasury, cash management, and payments. We also stood up new working groups to address industry issues and developments including the Buna regional payment platform, cross-border instant payments, supply chain payables finance, and RMAs.
We appreciate the continued support, engagement and commitment of our members and staff. You may view or download the 2020 BAFT Annual Review Digest here.
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