12th March 2020 – HSBC today announces the appointment of I-Mei Chan as Head of Portfolio Management and Distribution, Global Trade and Receivables Finance (GTRF) in Asia Pacific. HSBC has been leading the charge to turn trade finance into an investible asset class, building out the distribution team, as evidenced by Chan’s hire, and growing the distribution of trade finance assets to USD28bn in 2019.
Ajay Sharma, Regional Head of GTRF, Asia Pacific, commented, “As the global market leader in trade finance, HSBC is in a unique position to transform and facilitate trade. We are ramping up activity in the distribution space to service an unprecedented level of interest from institutional investors to buy and sell trade finance assets. The added liquidity will go a long way toward narrowing the trade finance gap, bringing benefits to the real economy by making trade finance more accessible to those who need it.”
ADB notes that businesses run by women as well as small and medium-sized enterprises face greater challenges in accessing trade finance, thus HSBC believes that widening the investor base of trade finance assets will remove some of these barriers.
With distribution hubs in Hong Kong, Singapore, London, New York and Dubai, HSBC’s trade finance distribution volumes have grown 14-fold – from USD2bn in 2015 to USD28bn in 2019. Last year, HSBC announced a partnership with Allianz Global Investors to make the investible asset class of trade finance more accessible to institutional investors such as insurers, pension funds, and family offices.
