FCI Launched 53rd Annual Meeting through a new virtual platform

From 22-23 September 2021, FCI hosted the 53rd Virtual Annual Meeting through a new, innovative and interactive virtual platform. Welcoming over 600 attendees, this year’s meeting focussed not only on the membership forum and council meeting but explored various topics, including how we can move into a positive post-covid world, how receivables finance can be viewed as an investible asset class, examining the risk factors and role of credit insurance, finishing the open-to-all section of the agenda with an in-depth discussion with various Development Bank senior executives.

Day 1, Part 1: Digitisation in the world of Receivables Finance

WELCOME

The day started with a short warm welcome from FCI Secretary General Peter Mulroy, followed by the FCI Chairman, Patrick de Villepin, who presented his report on his term at FCI as Chairman.

FCI CHAIRMAN’S REPORT

Patrick took a moment to highlight the challenges that his second term brought, including; the awakening of the Coronavirus, the Trade War, BREXIT, US Elections, and many other regional geopolitical events, he followed by saying, “... these times are not for the weak hearted! But we are members of a robust & powerful organisation”.

He also took the opportunity to announce his next steps after his FCI Chair position stating; “... I will officially step down as president of BNP Paribas Factor at the end of this month & take a new position within my Group as from 1 October. Normally, I would continue in this EXCOM as outgoing chairman. But as I am leaving the Factoring Industry, I will also end my tenure as a member of the FCI Executive Committee”. He closed his report by thanking his FCI colleagues and saying: “In a still-dangerous world, I am confident & optimistic for the near future. As the Factoring community excels in this crisis period, I expect FCI membership to meet the challenge. Just as it has for the past 50 years.”

OPENING SPEAKER

This year’s day one opening speaker was Jim Paulsen, Chief Market Strategist at The Leuthold Group. He presented on the topic “Economic and Financial Outlook”, using research carried out by The Leuthold Group. He highlighted the strengths and weaknesses of the market while showing us that the market has seen its most significant spike in profits since the 1950’s post-war markets, stating “post-pandemic corporate profit recovery has been unique and massive”.

YEAR IN REVIEW

In Peter Mulroy’s ‘Year in Review’ session, he stated: “Factoring is in high demand right now, as this crisis dissipates. We see the rebound occurring, as reported by many of our members. If you assume that our industry size in all of its components is approximately US$5 Trillion today, equivalent to 6% of Global GDP, we estimate our industry will grow to over $10 Trillion by 2030, accounting for nearly 10% of global GDP. But this will not come without its challenges, with the environment around us still quite in turmoil. However, factoring and RF is an extremely resilient industry, and no matter what, I anticipate bright skies for our future ahead!”

LECTURE ON THE EVOLUTION OF TECHNOLOGY IN FINANCE AND ITS APPLICATION TO RECEIVABLES FINANCING

Attendees listened to an informative lecture from journalist Alice Fulwood, The Economist, on the evolution of technology in finance and its application to receivables financing. Alice gave a broad overview of the ripples that the fintech market has been experiencing while focussing on big tech, reaction to big tech by central banks and government and finally, the most futuristic point, the idea of decentralised finance and on-blockchain financial services.

PANEL DISCUSSION: WILL HUMANS BE REPLACED BY ROBOTICS IN FACTORING? HOW DIGITALISATION, ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE AND BIG DATA ARE REVOLUTIONISING THE RECEIVABLES FINANCE INDUSTRY.

Following Alice’s lecture, we moved to an insightful panel discussion with Alice as moderator and panellists Daria Johnen and Michael Sugirin. They discussed the future of digitisation in Receivables Finance. The panel explored the use of advanced technology in all realms of invoice finance, the adoption of new technologies by FinTech’s to onboard clients, the rise in AI & Big Data in preventing and monitoring fraudulent behaviour and the role & benefits of machine learning in an automated, digital underwriting infrastructure.

Day 1, Part 2: Membership Forum

OPENING OF THE MEMBERSHIP FORUM

Peter Mulroy turned the floor to Patrick de Villepin, who officially opened the membership forum. He highlighted that this section was vital for all members to listen to as the points raised will be voted on in the digital voting sessions. Members were asked to submit any questions they may have on any items presented in the membership forum, and both Peter & Patrick would answer them as best as they could.

MEMBERSHIP FORUM AGENDA DISCUSSIONS

Peter Mulroy raised the minutes from 2020’s Annual Meeting in this section of the event. Peter highlighted that the FCI Annual Report reflected positive results, and Patrick confirmed this by stating that FCI has increased profitability dramatically over four years. Various other items raised included the voting of both the internal audit committee and auditors, the Executive committee and the new chairman. Other items presented were different article and section amendments to the rules and constitution.

REPORT BY THE TECHNICAL COMMITTEES

All FCI technical committee chairs presented their reports from each division. They each highlighted improvements, challenges, how their strategies set out last year were reached, and how it benefitted FCI and its members.

PRESENTATIONS FROM THE EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE STANDING CANDIDATES

Standing executive committee candidates were given one minute to present and introduce themselves to members as their last push for votes. We had thirteen candidates with only eleven spots available.

FCI NEW MEMBER PRESENTATIONS

FCI new member presentations were spread over the two days into small groups of 3-4 each. As a result, there were 16 new members in total; these included Albaraka Turks, BienFinans, BRCI, Eurocapital Services, Evolution, Facevalue, FSIB Islamic Bank, Hellenic Bank, Kapitalbank, Monex Mexico, NLB Banka, Oracle Financial Services, OTP Bank, Real Economy Funds, Santander Peru Capabilities and United Finance Ltd.

Day 2, Part 1: Moving beyond covid, exploring risk management and investments.

OPENING SPEAKER

Robert Smith, Capital Markets Correspondent at the Financial Times, was our selected opening speaker for day 2 of this year’s meeting. Robert has been the lead reporter on the Financial Time’s coverage on the unravelling of Greensill Capital. He discussed the impacts that this corporate scandal caused in the UK and around the world while examining and diving into the root causes of this collapse.

PANEL DISCUSSION WITH SENIOR EXECUTIVES ON THE IMPACT OF COVID 19 AND HOW THE WORLD WILL LOOK LIKE AFTER COVID.

Patrick de Villepin, along with senior executive panellists John Oliver, Marc Heller and Renchun Zeng, discussed the pandemic’s impact and how the post-covid financial world will look. The panel took a broad look at what positives came from the pandemic while looking at what we have learned from this and what we can do in the future to minimise the impact if this were to happen again.

PANEL DISCUSSION: POST-MORTEM ANALYSIS ON GREENSILL AND OTHER CASES STUDIES: EXAMINING THE RISK FACTORS, THE ROLE OF CREDIT INSURANCE AND THE CHALLENGES RELATING TO ARM’S LENGTH FUNDS

In this in-depth panel discussion, moderator Deepesh Patel and panellists Sean Edwards, Igor Zaks, and Thomas Dunn dove into deep analysis on Greensill with a deeper look into what went wrong and the impact it had on other supply chain finance platforms, as well as other cases studies where they examined the risk factors, the role of credit insurance and the challenges relating to arm’s length funds.

PANEL DISCUSSION: RECEIVABLES FINANCE AS AN INVESTABLE ASSET CLASS

Bertrand de Comminges moderated this insightful panel discussion with panellists Marc-André Pépin, Emily Esther Adendorff and Jiameng Yu. They discussed Receivables Finance as an investible asset class and the pros and cons of this revolving asset. Emily provided a view on this topic as an insurer, Jiameng provided a picture on this from a platform and provider perspective. Finally, Marc-André provided his opinion on this topic as a financial investor.

Day 2, Part 2: Council Meeting

REGIONAL PRESENTATIONS

All FCI regional directors and managers (Betül Kurtulus, Aminou Nassourou, Thomson Lui, Lin Hui and Alberto Wyderka) presented their reports from each region as highlighted in this year’s Annual Review. In addition, they each highlighted regional events, membership statistics, education, and their 2021 regional improvements and challenges and 2022 plans and forecasts. Fran?oise Palle-Guillabert, EUF Chair, presented the report for the EU Federation.

PANEL WITH DEVELOPMENT BANKS

Peter opened an in-depth discussion with leading development banks from Asia, Africa and Europe with fellow senior executive panellists Steven Beck (ADB), Bleming Nekati (AfDB) and Rudolf Putz (EBRD). The panel provided a perspective on exactly what is happening in each region concerning the factoring industry. Each panellist highlighted what impacts they saw due to the pandemic and how they supported their members, what they are doing within the receivables finance and trade industry to assist and finally, what they see for the future.

COUNCIL MEETING

Neels Bornman, CEO of FaceValue, was introduced to the stage by Kyle Mota to confirm the validation of all votes and legitimacy of all vote counting. Patrick and Peter then presented the results and announced the voted amendments to each of the items raised regarding the rules and constitution. The following article brought up was where FCI would host the 2022 Annual Meeting. Peter confirmed that from 19 to 22 June 2022, FCI would be in Washington DC for the 54th Annual Meeting.

ANNOUNCEMENT OF VOTING RESULTS FOR EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE

Finally, both Peter and Patrick announced the new Executive Committee for 2022. The chairman was confirmed as Daniela Bonzanini, Head of International and member of the Board of foreign Subsidiaries, Banca IFIS, Italy and followed by the two Vice-Chairman: ?agatay Baydar (TEB Faktoring, Turkey) and Joaquim Durany Seto (Caixabank, Spain) and the rest of the new members of the Executive Committee including Philippe Gresta, Sun Jianbo, Christian Eymery, Doaa A. Hafez, Toshiyuki Hirata, Panos Papatheodorou, Amit Aarwal and Julio Nielsen. Prof. Benedict Oramah was also elected as the Executive Committee representative of the Affiliate Members.

Daniela took to the stage to say a few words, stating; “We are navigating through a global pandemic, and while it will not be leaving anytime soon, we need to be innovative and creative to advance the industry into this new era of sustainable development to ensure the industry and FCI’s members come out stronger than ever before. A lot of work is awaiting myself and the newly elected executive committee, and we are ready for the challenge.”

EDUCATION AND BUSINESS AWARDS

Aysen Cetintas announced the education awards highlighting the top students of the year, followed by Natasha Roston from Trade Finance Global, as she promulgated the 2021 winners for the International Trade Professionals Programme (ITPP).

Both Peter Mulroy and Patrick de Villepin announced the winners for the 2021 Business Awards at this year’s 53rd Virtual Annual Meeting today. You may discover them in this publication. The announcement followed the election of FCI’s new Chairwoman and Executive Committee.

CLOSE OF FCI 53RD VIRTUAL ANNUAL MEETING 2021

Peter took this moment to thank Patrick for the incredible and dedicated service he has provided to FCI over the years and wished him well on his new adventure. Patrick and Peter thanked all the FCI staff involved in helping to make the Annual Meeting a success and thanked all the attendees for joining and tuning in.

CONCLUSION

This year’s virtual Annual Meeting brought with it many highs and lows, saying goodbye to the previous term’s Executive Committee and Chairman while highlighting so much talent and success in the awards. 2021 brought many challenges, as mentioned in the panel discussions, but it also had a few silver linings. Although we are still picking up the pieces from the pandemic, we need to focus on looking forward, as this is where we are headed. Each region and sector within the industry are working very hard to keep moving forward, advance in the new evolving technological world, and adapt to sudden changes and minimise risk. The team at FCI welcomes all our new members and colleagues and look forward to another successful year ahead.

Discover more from the latest FCI In-Sight publication by visiting www.fci.nl/sight-newsletter and viewing the publication online for free.