BAFT joined with others in the industry to file a letter supporting BSA reform. Read the letter here.
BAFT Joins Industry Letter to Support BSA Reform
BAFT announced today Mark Garfield of Zions Bancorp will serve as the chair of its board of directors for the 2019-2020 association year.
BAFT announced today Mark Garfield of Zions Bancorp will serve as the chair of its board of directors for the 2019-2020 association year. Garfield and other board officers were elected at BAFT’s Global Annual Meeting in San Diego.
Garfield is the head of global financial institutions at Zions and a long serving member of the BAFT board. He has over 30 years of banking experience, with more than 25 years covering trade finance, foreign exchange and correspondent banking. Garfield has served on the DEC National Advisory Board, Board of the World Trade Center (Utah), and Chair of the Utah District Export Council.
“I am excited about the opportunity to serve as the board chair for BAFT,” said Garfield. “I have seen the organization grow over the years and look forward to continuing the tradition of serving as a leading voice for the global transaction banking industry.”
BAFT board officers include:
- Vice Chair: Raffaele Martino, Intesa Sanpaolo
- Secretary / Treasurer: Stephanie Wolf, Bank of America Merrill Lynch
Other directors include:
- Vivek Gupta, ANZ
- Tod Burwell (CEO), BAFT
- Ziad Ghosn, BankMed
- Keith Mackie, Barclays
- Suresh Subramanian, BNP Paribas
- John Ahearn, Citi
- Patrick Gmür, Credit Suisse
- Miriam Ratkovicova, Deloitte
- Ulf-Peter Noetzel, Deutsche Bank
- Serena Smith, FIS Global
- Amy Sahm, Fulton Financial
- Patricia Gomes, HSBC
- Jan-Willem Sudmann, Mashreq
- Steve Lotito, MUFG
- Jonathan Elkins, National Bank of Canada
- James Peterson, Northern Trust
- Kimberly Burdette, PNC
- Bart Timmermans, Santander
- Tarik Muzaffar, TD Bank
- Christian Stolcke, UBS
- F. H. Ahlborn, US Bank
- Kai Fehr, Wells Fargo
BAFT, an international financial services association, today announced the graduates of its Future Leaders program class of 2019.
WASHINGTON – BAFT, an international financial services association, today announced the graduates of its Future Leaders program class of 2019. The program – now completing its fourth year – recognizes upcoming leaders in the transaction banking industry. The graduates were recognized during the annual BAFT North America Conference in in San Diego.
Nominated by their respective institutions, the class of 2019 included 32 individuals from 14 countries and a variety of disciplines within transaction banking. This year’s group was divided into four project teams to address current industry issues such as the future correspondent banking, the role of humans in transaction banking, trade dynamics, and building collaboration between global transaction banking.
“Through the Future Leaders program, the class of 2019 graduates have taken on leadership roles and helped advance important issues in the transaction banking industry,” said Tod Burwell, president and CEO of BAFT. “This program continues to serve as a way for BAFT to invest in the next generation of banking leadership and solve common industry challenges.”
The class of 2019 began the program at the annual BAFT Europe Bank to Bank Forum in London. Several future leader council members supported the current class as mentors, joining BAFT board members who served as project sponsors.
BAFT congratulates the following graduates from the Class of 2019.
- Arezu Abedinzadeh, SEB
- Abdul Aleem, ITFC
- Rami AlHusari, Arab Bank
- Media Alimorad, BMO Capital Markets
- Sylvie Bartelmaos, Banque Libano-Francaise
- Michael Beispel, Tradeshift
- Josephine Bergman, Swedbank AB
- Michael Boede, MUFG
- Jennifer Couch, PrimeRevenue, Inc.
- Ryan Dalrymple, U.S. Bank NA
- Matthew Giannotti, NatWest
- Anthony Guide, PNC Bank NA
- Guus Huijgen, Deutsche Bank AG
- Kerry Jordan, CIBC FirstCaribbean
- Annina Keller, Credit Suisse
- René Klose, Commerzbank
- Luke Kneeshaw, Columbia Bank
- Ryan Knoll, BNY Mellon
- Donald Monson, Deloitte, LLP
- Katherine Mueller, INTL FCStone
- Rodrigue Nakindavyi, Danske Bank
- Osman Ansari, JP Morgan
- Sureen Pannagas, Société Générale
- Abhijit Patil, State Bank of India
- Silvio Pestalozzi, UBS AG
- Joshua Quigley, Bank of America Merrill Lynch
- Chanpreet Sawhney, Wells Fargo Bank
- Saurabh Sharma, Abu Dhabi Commercial Bank
- Gert Sonck, ING Bank NV
- George Stergianopoulos, HSBC Bank
- Anton Suphal, RBC Investor & Treasury Services
- Anthony Williams, Scotiabank
Learn more about BAFTs Future Leader Program here
BAFT released technical as well as business best practices for a digital ledger payment commitment (DLPC). The documents identify industry-wide specifications for a DLPC, enabling digitization of trade finance instruments for processing on a DLT platform and interoperability among platforms.
BAFT Releases Best Practices for Digital Ledger Payment Commitments
WASHINGTON – BAFT, the leading global trade association for transaction banking, today released technical as well as business best practices for a digital ledger payment commitment (DLPC). A DLPC is a core component of all trade finance instruments involving a promise to pay that is registered on distributed ledger technology (DLT) platform built to conduct international trade. The documents identify industry-wide specifications for a DLPC, enabling digitization of trade finance instruments for processing on a DLT platform and interoperability among platforms.
The best practices were developed by BAFT’s Digital Ledger Payment Commitment Working Group, which formed in 2016 at the direction of BAFT’s Innovation Council. The working group consists of representatives from 15 large global banks, business consultant firms, law firms, trade finance solution providers, and fintech companies.
“The BAFT Distributed Ledger Payment Commitment specifications offer a standardized solution for companies to register digital representations of payment commitments on a distributed ledger,” said Samantha Pelosi, Senior Vice President, Payments and Innovation of BAFT. “It is a building block for instruments like drafts, bills of exchange, letters of credit, bank payment obligations and banker’s acceptances. We encourage the industry to incorporate these specifications into DLT platforms for international trade to facilitate interoperability between the multiple trade solutions being developed to leverage the benefits inherent in DLT.”
Recognizing that the industry is early in its transition from a paper-based process to a DLT-based process for engaging in trade finance, BAFT is releasing these best practices for trial use and seeking feedback from early adopters. It hopes to incorporate that feedback in future versions of the DLPC specifications as they evolve into industry standards.
The Technical Best Practices and Business Best Practices are available for industry review at www.baft.org.
BAFT, The Wolfsberg Group, and the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) jointly announced today the publication of appendices to its 2017 Trade Finance Principles guidance document.
International Trade Organizations Release Additional Compliance Guidance for Trade Transactions
BAFT, The Wolfsberg Group, and the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) jointly announced today the publication of appendices to its 2017 Trade Finance Principles guidance document. The document addresses the due diligence required by global and regional financial institutions of all sizes in the financing of international trade and will now feature information on open account trade and financial institutions’ trade loans.
The appendices provide guidance on the specific application of controls by banks in the context of open account trade transactions and specifically elaborate on receivables purchase techniques as defined by the Global Supply Chain Finance Forum. They also provide guidance on the application of controls by banks in the context of Financial Institutions Trade Loans (FITL), also called Bank-to-Bank Trade Loans.
The publication of this additional guidance is the culmination of more than two years of work undertaken by the organizations and their members.
“The trade industry has been clamoring for more specific guidance on articulating controls for open account trade products,” said Tod Burwell, president and CEO, BAFT. “Finally, a resource has been developed by the leading industry associations working together to provide guidance on payables finance, receivables discounting and bank to bank trade loan products.”
“The trade finance market is rapidly evolving, which means that rules and guidance need to not only keep pace but also anticipate future changes,” Olivier Paul, director of ICC finance for development. “This new update of the Trade Finance Principles does exactly that — providing critical guidance on Open Account and Receivables techniques.”
“In the two years since BAFT, the ICC and the Wolfsberg Group published their last update to the Trade Finance Principles, the working group has not lessened its efforts or enthusiasm, producing very welcome additional guidance on open account trade and the financing of international trade more broadly,” said Tracy Paradise, executive secretary, the Wolfsberg Group. “We trust that those involved in these transactions will find this useful, particularly all aspects of the controls required in this area.”
The updated Trade Finance Principles may be found in the Library of Documents under “Best Practices and Industry Standards”.
About The Wolfsberg Group
The Wolfsberg Group is an association of thirteen global banks which aims to develop frameworks and guidance for the management of FCRs, particularly with respect to Know Your Customer, Anti-Money Laundering and Counter Terrorist Financing policies. The Wolfsberg Group consists of the following financial institutions: Banco Santander, Bank of America, Barclays, Citigroup, Credit Suisse, Deutsche Bank, Goldman Sachs, HSBC, JPMorgan Chase, MUFG, Société Générale, Standard Chartered and UBS. https://www.wolfsberg-principles.com/
About The International Chamber of Commerce (ICC)
The International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) is the world’s largest business organization representing more than 45 million companies in over 100 countries. ICC’s core mission is to make business work for everyone, every day, everywhere. Through a unique mix of advocacy, solutions and standard setting, we promote international trade, responsible business conduct and a global approach to regulation, in addition to providing market-leading dispute resolution services. Our members include many of the world’s leading companies, SMEs, business associations and local chambers of commerce.www.iccwbo.org
About BAFT
BAFT, the leading global financial services association for international transaction banking, helps bridge solutions across financial institutions, service providers and the regulatory community that promote sound financial practices enabling innovation, efficiency, and commercial growth. BAFT engages on a wide range of topics affecting transaction banking, including trade finance, payments, and compliance. The association website is www.baft.org
On March 13, BAFT joined eight other financial services trade associations in submitting a letter to the House Financial Services Committee leaders highlighting the need for a national beneficial ownership registry.
While banks are required to collect the beneficial ownership information of their customers, the associations noted that the lack of a single, centralized federal registry for verification of that information “represents a significant gap in the U.S. regulatory system that allows criminals, money launderers, kleptocrats and terrorist financiers to obscure their identities from law enforcement.”
The letter urged lawmakers to pursue reforms to the current anti-money laundering framework that would result in greater clarity and simplicity for banks. Specifically, the associations called for reforms that would better align the examination and compliance framework with national AML/CFT priorities; facilitate information sharing between financial institutions and law enforcement; update and streamline reporting requirements; and encourage the use of technology to support AML efforts.
The letter may be found under the Comment Letters in the Documents Library.