Successful Annual Workshop of the German Regional Committee

Successful Annual Workshop of the German Regional Committee

For the second time the German Regional Committee has held a workshop for Senior Forfaiters. This year the Workshop took place in Munich. It was hosted by Bayerische Landesbank, followed by an invitation by the ITFA to a networking dinner for all participants to the workshop. The workshop was – as last year – reserved for ITFA members only, aimed at experienced players in the market and held in German. Therefore the attendants came mainly from Germany, Austria and Switzerland, but there was also one Participant from London and we were very pleased to have Paolo Provera with us again, who speaks excellent German, so the language is not an issue for him.

This year the discussions evolved around two groups of topics:

First we talked about documentary issues and here of course the URF were in the center of everybody’s interest. In Germany the liability for the underlying transaction is always with the initial seller of a Forfaiting transaction. And it seems that Austria and even Switzerland have similar clauses in their contracts There is now great concern for the German membership that with the URF this practice might be challenged. But also the impact of book receivables on the Forfaiting market (does their importance increase, what documentation is acceptable, what are the differences between Forfaiting and Factoring ?), wording and booking of guarantees and last but not least the BAFT MRPA (here of course the never ending question around the fraud clause, but also the confidentiality clause were raised) interested the participants.

The second part dealt with the more regulatory aspects: after a brief update from ITEC (mainly on the October release of the Basel Committee concerning trade finance), the topic which raised most interest was settlement risk: how do we have to book counterparty risks – namely under funded participations – in the new regulatory environment ? Practices seem to vary greatly here. Another question which was intensively discussed was the need for a discussion platform for ITFA members.

The dinner took place in a traditional Bavarian cave, with good food and a very relaxed atmosphere, which gave room for more animated discussions.

We are already looking forward to our next year’s workshop, which will take place at the end of November 2012 and which will be combined with a GRC Christmas reception, to which we hope to welcome even more ITFA members.

Liebe Grüße, Happy Forfaiting,

Your GRC Committee,

Silja Calac Waltraud Raderschall Stephan Schneider Sandra Beck