November 2021

The Saudi British Bank (SABB) and the Saudi Export-Import Bank (EXIM) have signed a documentary credit Insurance policy agreement.

The agreement was signed during the 9th Annual Saudi Trade Finance Summit in Riyadh, by His Excellency Eng. Saad Alkhalb, CEO of EXIM, and Mr. Tony Cripps, Managing Director of SABB, in the presence of Mr. Majed Najm, Deputy Managing Director, Corporate and Institutional Banking at SABB. The agreement will allow SABB to accept more documentary letters of credit and enhance its dealings with international banks issuing LCs, as insurance coverage contributes to increasing opportunities for Saudi products to enter new markets. In addition, the two banks inked a memorandum of understanding (MoU) to collaborate in developing export capabilities and facilities to their clients.

Furthermore, SABB presented its views on developing the future of trade finance in Saudi Arabia at the 9th annual Saudi Trade Finance Summit. The summit, recognized as the most significant event in the trade finance sector in the Kingdom brings together CEOs, Group CFOs and Treasury heads and key government agencies. This year the theme was “Resilience in Trade, Supply Chain, and Treasury Management”.

During the discussion sessions, David Leslie, General Manager of Global Trade and Receivable Finance at SABB, delivered a keynote presentation titled “End-to-end digitization of trade finance” in which he highlighted boosting efficiency, automation, and risk mitigation through technological innovations, underlining the importance of digitalization in accelerating growth. In addition to leveraging block-chain based infrastructure to increase efficiency, reduce costs and open up new prospects in trade finance.

SABB, as the leading Trade Finance bank in Saudi Arabia attended the summit as a platinum sponsor and provided ground breaking input on building financial resilience strategies, developing trade finance tools, as well as discussing laws and strategies that will contribute to the growth of the Saudi economy.