Standard Chartered and IFC team up to boost global trade

by Richard Kilner

Story link: Standard Chartered and IFC team up to boost global trade

Standard Chartered Bank has announced that it is collaborating with the IFC (part of the World Bank Group) in order to support global finance through a $1.25bn funding partnership.

It is the first such move to come out of the trade finance initiative the Global Trade Liquidity Program (GTLP).

Standard Chartered will originate up to $1.25bn of trade finance transactions from banks located in the world’s emerging economies.

These banks will then extend financing to importer/exporter clients in their own countries.

The IFC and other involved organisations will share the burden of risk and invest up to $500m.

Over a three year period countries in Asia, the Middle East, Africa and Latin American could benefit from as much as $7.5bn of trade funding.

Group chief executive of Standard Chartered, Peter Sands, has expressed the bank’s pride at being the first to join the partnership in a bid to help kick-start the global economy.

The news comes two days after Robert Zoellick, President of the World Bank, urged the world’s wealthiest nations not to let the G20 slip by without facing up to the world’s real economic problems.

Zoellick went on to say that the world’s poorest nations had far less of a cushion to absorb the blow of the recent worldwide economic difficulties and emphasised the importance of supporting the developing countries.