Author: Digital Trade Outlook

Belfius has handed its trade finance business to someone who has been with the bank for under a year. Laurianne Bouchart, who joined in November 2025 as head of sales for trade finance, is now head of trade finance. She reports to Koen Vierendeels, head of transaction banking. Her route here is unusual. Before Belfius, she was commercial director for trade credit insurance and debt collection at Coface. Earlier she spent 14 years at BNP Paribas, including a stint as head of sales for global trade solutions in Belgium, and seven years at CBC Banque & Assurance, the francophone branch…

BNP Paribas is restructuring its global cash management business, and it has chosen the person who ran corporate cash management for its key clients to lead the change. Nicolas Cailly is now Head of Cash Management & Servicing Transformation. His task has two parts. He is to grow the cash management franchise across the EMEA to US and EMEA to APAC corridors, and to change how the bank delivers servicing. BNP Paribas treats the two as one effort: faster growth, supported by an operating model that can scale without losing quality or distinctiveness, built on a mix of human expertise…

One of Deutsche Bank’s longest-serving trade bankers has moved to a rival. J.P. Morgan has hired Atul Jain as head of global trade and working capital sales, taking over from Natasha Condon. Jain spent 25 years at Deutsche Bank. His last job was managing director and global head of financial resource management in the corporate bank, based in Singapore from February 2026. Before that he spent almost four years as global co-head of trade finance and lending, and earlier headed trade finance and lending for Asia Pacific. Condon is not leaving. Her new title is head of global trade and…

Citi has reshuffled the leadership of its trade business in three regions, and two of the three new heads come from corporate banking, not from trade itself. Manish Bajaj will run trade for Japan, Asia North and Australia. He joined Citi as a management associate in 2005 and has spent more than 20 years at the bank, most recently as Head of Corporate Banking for the Philippines. He has also worked as a senior banker in Mumbai and as Asia Pacific Energy Industry Champion. He is a qualified Chartered Accountant. Shalin Shroff takes Asia South. He has nearly two decades…

The Solana Foundation has launched Solana DvP, an open source escrow program for atomic delivery versus payment settlement of tokenised assets, with input from J.P. Morgan.

Afreximbank and the East African Business Council have signed an Africa Trade Gateway agency agreement to connect East African SMEs and exporters to digital trade across the AfCFTA.

Surecomp has announced that Körber Technologies GmbH, a leading manufacturer, has successfully gone live with its RIVO platform, automating transaction processing and centralizing visibility across its global trade finance operations.

Visa has unveiled a new approach to onchain credit, aimed at helping stablecoin linked card programs and fintechs access working capital by pairing onchain lending infrastructure with Visa’s own data.

Building on Evrotrust’s footprint across Central and Southeast Europe and Trustfull’s cross border digital intelligence, the partnership should help both companies serve existing customers better while expanding into new European markets.

UniCredit has acquired a minority stake in Frankfurt-based fintech VC Trade, strengthening its digital debt financing capabilities across Europe. The investment will support VC Trade’s international expansion and accelerate the digitisation of syndicated loans, Schuldscheine and other debt transactions.