News Round

Lance T. Kawaguchi has been appointed as standard Chartered Bank’s Middle East and North Africa, strategic Client Coverage Group (SCCG) industry head for the oil and gas sector (within transaction banking). he will be responsible for working closely with each country team to drive transaction banking pipeline and revenue origination within the oil and gas sector. also, he will be …

Korea Trade Insurance Corporation (K-sure) and the national Bank of abu dhabi have signed a Memorandum of Understanding to arrange trade and project financing loans to south Korean companies that have secured export insurance coverage from K-sure. K-sure was founded by the Korean government in 1992 to operate export and import insurance programmes for the purpose of facilitating global trade. …

Standard Chartered has launched a mobile application designed for its corporate clients – cash and trade authorisation for android smartphone users. This announcement follows the October 2010 launch of its iPhone application that offers authorisation capability for cash and trade to its corporate clients. The bank says the application covers authorisation for both cash and trade functions. Mobile authorisation via …

The Dubai Gold & Commodities exchange (DGCX) achieved a robust start to 2011, with a record volume of 244,385 contracts, valued at $11.7bn in the first month of the year. That was the highest ever monthly volume activity for the exchange since inception in 2005. It was driven by strong member participation in currency, gold and crude oil futures, recording …

Abu Dhabi’s foreign trade was worth aed 109.1bn in 2010, a decrease of 2.5 per cent compared to 2009, according to the Emirate’s department of Finance, General directorate of Customs, in providing annual statistics on foreign goods arriving via land, sea and air. The statistics also showed a decline in imports, recording aed 86.54bn, a drop of 7.8 per cent …

In 2010, the gtnews Treasury Risk survey tracked the challenges that corporates faced in mitigating risk and popular risk management methods. Th e results showed that concerns over liquidity remained high on the corporate agenda. Six hundred and one corporates took part in the research, providing a comprehensive set of results. Respondents came from a cross-section of companies and sizes. …

The National Commercial Bank (NCB) has won the J P Morgan Elite Award for efficient treasury operators for the years 2009 and 2010. J P Morgan explained that NCB was chosen “for its outstanding efficiency during those two years for its Straight Through Processing (STP) operation by scoring above 99.7 per cent for all treasury payment transactions processed through J …

Abu Dhabi Commercial Bank (ADCB) has launched ProTrade, its online trade finance platform, allowing customers to manage their trade transactions from anywhere at any time. The new portal, part of ADCB’s EasyTrade suite of products and services, has been designed to enhance customers’ businesses with a norestriction system enabling importers and exporters to pay and get paid for the goods …

Falcon, an independent trade services specialist, has appointed two new business development managers in Dubai as part of the firm’s expansion in the Middle East region. Mohammed Shafi joins from HSBC Middle East, where he was director for its corporate banking division, and Fadel Altaher was previously senior relationship manager at Commercial Bank International in Dubai. Headquartered in Dubai, Falcon Trade …

The Central Bank of Oman completed its electronic cheque-clearing programme (ECC) all over the Sultanate as of January this year. Executive president hamoud bin Sangour al Zadjali said, “This important project is a milestone in establishing international standard payment systems infrastructure in the Sultanate.” Hilal bin Ali al Barwani, deputy director of the electronic financial change and settlement project committee, …

Abu Dhabi Commercial Bank (ADCB) and Bank of America Merrill Lynch (BofA Merrill) have formed a relationship in the UAE. It allows the latter’s clients requiring services in the region access to the capabilities provided by ADCB and for ADCB clients to access BofA Merrill’s global network of corporate banking and cash management capabilities. Ala’a Eraiqat, chief executive officer and …

Global foreign direct investment (FDI) inf lows were only slightly higher in 2010 than in recessionhit 2009, according to estimates from the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU). Growth in FDI inflows to emerging markets – by an estimated 14 per cent – offset another decline in flows to the developed world of an estimated seven per cent. Global FDI inflows are …

Ras Al Khaimah Investment Authority (RAKIA) – a major provider of investment opportunities and one-stop solutions in its free zones, industrial parks and offshore facilities – has recently signed a memorandum of understanding with HSBC, which will open a complete range of banking and financial services to companies operating in the emirate. Dr Khater Massaad, CEO, RAKIA, said, “This is …

Centralisation and standardisation as well as simplification and automation – these are the focus areas for an efficient treasury process, according to Judith van Paassen, partner at Zanders Treasury and Finance Solutions, reported in a journal published by OpusCapita. She believes that the key drivers for treasuries are to reduce cost, create value, reduce risk and improve control. According to …

Corporate earnings in the UAE are poised to swing back to growth at 24 per cent in 2011 after declining by an estimated six per cent in 2010, according to the Kuwait Financial Centre. “The resurgence in the corporate sector after two years of dismal performance will be driven by the banking sector as we believe the worst is over …

Recovery is under way, in the oil-rich Gulf states certainly, and more tentatively across other parts of the Middle East and North Africa. And trade is central to this revival, as the resurgence in global economic activity lift s international demand for the region’s oil, gas and heavy industrial exports such as petrochemicals and aluminium. But the pace is still …