TXF Welcomes Sibos to our Manor!

In cockney lingo, ‘our manor’ or ‘gaff’ means where we live. London Calling! is our homage to TXF’s ‘manor’, a great song by the UK band ‘The Clash’, and a timely hello to Sibos.

TXF is delighted to welcome all the international banking and FI professionals who have made their way to London, our home patch, this year to help shape the future of world payments, securities, cash management and trade finance. And for those of you who haven’t trekked to the UK, this is the introduction to our handy PDF guide, a compilation of key features relating to SWIFT and global trade that you may have missed, and an idea of things to do and people to see you may like to follow up on for future visits to London.

Not only do we want to help to prepare professionals to make the most of Sibos, but we highlight some quirky and fun places for you to visit in our home town.

Somewhat surprisingly, this is the first time SWIFT has brought Sibos to London. Brighton was the closest it came, and that was back in 1985, and the attendees then were in the hundreds, not thousands.

SWIFT (established 1973) and Sibos (first seen in 1978) have profoundly changed international payments and the technology which supports them.

We look at the Sibos agenda and present our pick of the sessions that those involved in world trade should attend, or keep an eye on.

Download the TXF guide to trade at Sibos

SWIFT’s global payments innovation (gpi) initiative runs through the agenda like letters in a stick of Brighton rock [were you there in 1985?]. What has this got to do with financing trade? Listen to SWIFT itself, and you’ll understand that it could be pretty much everything. SWIFT is hoping that gpi will make visible the continued convergence of cash and trade, and we feature this in our roundtable discussion ‘Blurring the Lines’.

We also ask questions about the future. What will happen after SWIFT’s matching engine, trade services utility, comes to an end in 2020 (‘Changing the plugs’)? Does the KYC Registry help to promote trust in trade for banks and corporate customers (‘Identity Crisis’)?

KYC means compliance and the Asian Development Bank (ADB)’s Steven Beck discusses the problem of overcompliance and its effect on the trade finance gap and how the legal entity identifier can be used for smaller corporates.

Trade and supply chains are evolving and being moulded by both the vicissitudes of geopolitics and concerns about the environment. What we are looking forward to is a world of financing international trade that preserves trust and integrity while capitalising on the opportunities from digitisation and embracing the Sibos ethos.

The opportunities now in Sibos London mean that the foundations laid by the industry nearly half a century ago are what we can build on as a community in making trade and technology work together for many years in the future. Enjoy London Calling!

Now time to get up to speed on the markets.
     Here's our exclusive TXF Essentials subscriber content

Expert briefing: Writing a new chapter in digital trade
For thousands of years, goods and services have been exchanged between different trading partners. But as supply chains have scaled, the $23 trillion world of global trade has only grown in complexity, writes DBS.

Looking behind the mask on trade finance at ITFA
Katharine Morton ponders the opacities of financing trade, and what lies beneath, revealed at ITFA’s celebration of a mysterious dance of hide and seek.

SACE SIMEST: ECA excellence despite domestic uncertainty
Ahead of TXF Italy next month, TXF talks to Alessandro Terzulli, chief economist of SACE, about the uncertainties of the economic scenario in which SACE SIMEST currently operates and the initiatives it is pursuing to boost exporter confidence.

Plus, to top things off...
    the news you thought you had but didn't.

Ghana's Cocobod shaves price on annual PXF
Ghana's Cocobod has closed its annual pre-export receivables-backed trade finance facility of $1.3 billion – its second international borrowing this year.

Keliber to sign offtake for lithium mining project by year-end
Sponsors of Keliber’s €230 million ($253 million) mining and lithium production project in Finland – Nordic Mining, a subsidiary of Keliber, and state-owned Finnish Mineral Group (the majority shareholder) – are expected to sign the offtake agreement backing the scheme by the end of the year.

Boralex looking for refinancing
Canada-based Boralex is said to be out to lenders for a refinancing of its 1GW onshore wind portfolio in France.

Ashurst adds to Latin project finance team
Ashurst has appointed Andres Arnaldos Montaner as a partner in its Latin American project, corporate and acquisition finance practice in New York. Montaner joins from Allen & Overy, where he spent the last two years as senior counsel.

Olam sounds out banks for annual RCF refi
Olam International is currently sounding out banks for its annual RCF refinancing. The self-arranged club deal is expected to between $1.5 billion and $2 billion, with bank mandates due this month and signing targeted for mid-October this year.

Taweelah IWP debt financing signed
Concurrent with the signing of the 30-year water purchase agreement between procurer Emirates Water and Electricity Company (EWEC) and project sponsor ACWA Power earlier this week, financing for the $900 million Taweelah reverse osmosis IWP in Abu Dhabi has also been signed.

SMC signs New Manila International Airport concession
San Miguel Corporation (SMC) has signed the 50-year concession agreement for the PHP734 billion ($14 billion) New Manila International Airport project with the Philippines’ Department of Transportation (DOTr). The concession comes with no government guarantees or subsidies.

Deutsche creates new loan and portfolio management role
Kommunalkredit has hired Oliver Fincke as head of portfolio and loan management – a newly created role in line with the bank’s confirmed intention to expand its loan portfolio.

UK's CfD round three comes in well below recommended strike price
The winners of the UK’s round three contract for difference (CfD) auction have been announced. All 12 awards are priced in the same ballpark – seven at £39.65/MWh and at £41.611/MWh – and are, in effect, subsidy-free given the £56/MWh 15-year recommended strike price by the UK government.