On this episode we talk about ESG, the purpose of trade and the relationship with aid.

TXF's CEO, Dan Sheriff, is joined by:

Rebecca Harding, Rebeccanomics

Where do ECA mandates these days start and finish, in a world where ECAs - since the financial crisis and COVID - have been asked to step up in more ways. How can you keep a rules-based approach, and where do ECAs stop and other institutions, such as development banks and other government departments start?

For this episode on ECA mandates, Dan Sheriff is joined by:

Rebecca Harding, Rebeccanomics

Prior to the banking crisis, our guests discuss geopolitics - an issue that influences the very fabric of export finance. Geopolitics have a massive impact on what governments are up to, what business is able to do and ultimately, what export finance is able to do and how it can potentially either help certain situations.

Guests:

Jump right in and take sustainability to where the client is at in their journey. That’s the strong message of TXF’s discussion with Donna Laviolette, Senior Manager, Global Sustainability at Xylem and Donna McNamara, Global Head, Trade Product Commercialization, Treasury and Trade Solutions at Citi, hosted by Citi. How does financing trade sustainably work in practice? 

In a wide ranging discussion, TXF is joined by Melanie Lawrence of Afreximbank, Gabriel Buck of GKB Ventures and Chris Mitman of Investec to discuss challenges faced in providing export finance to Africa. The discussion focusses on current and future books for commercial banks, the retraction of the private insurance sector and the issues caused, lack of incentives for socially impactful sectors in the OECD consensus, specific African challenges related to local content requirements, and a call for greater provision of local currency solutions.

Having only started his new role two months ago in the midst of a global pandemic, Arnaud Floris, head of West, Central and North Africa at Bpifrance has been busy. Floris speaks to TXF to discuss the French ECA's response to the pandemic on the continent. 

TXF is joined by Gabby Buck to discuss the impact that Covid-19 is having and will have on export finance. Whilst acknowledging this is a very different environment for everyone, we draw on experiences from the financial crisis, and discuss what ECAs will do to ease pain now, and re-build the global economy in the years to come. ECAs will also need banks, and the discussion looks at what banks should and should not do to navigate a way through this. In both cases, speed in terms of decision-making and execution may be critical.

Stephen Renna, chief banking officer at Export-Import Bank of the US talks to TXF about US Exim’s response to Covid-19 as it hits the ground running following full reauthorisation. How is US Exim filling the gaps left by the private capital market in both guarantees, working capital support and SCF? What about cooperation with other ECAs when the hard work of recovery really starts?

Steven Beck, head of trade and supply chain finance at ADB talks to TXF from lockdown Manila about how ADB is supercharging its existing trade finance programs to keep trade flowing amid Covid-19 and how both the digitisation and sustainability agenda will be maximised. 

Gabriel Cumenge, deputy secretary of the French Ministry of Finance, DG Tresor tells TXF the importance of ECAs continuing their roles as the shock absorbers of global trade and driving the sustainability agenda through the current crisis.