Global Trade Finance Limited (GTF), the Factoring joint venture in India whose shareholders are FIMBank plc, International Finance Corporation (IFC), member of the World Bank, Export-Import Bank of India, and Bank of Maharashtra, won the first prize for its Website in the Factors Chain International (FCI) Marketing Promotion Award 2006.
GTF is a member of FCI, a global association of international factoring companies. Factoring is a complete financial package that combines working capital financing, credit risk protection, accounts, receivable book keeping and collection services. It is a specialised receivable financing and management service simply designed to ease the traditional problems of selling on open account. FCI, which was established in 1968, has played a major role in bringing factoring into most countries and today has a membership of 206 factoring companies operating in 59 countries.
GTF, which is headquartered in Mumbai and has four representative offices in New Delhi, Bangalore, Chennai and Hyderabad, is an unquoted company specialising in providing export-financing solutions to small and medium sized Indian exporters with a strong focus on products, such as factoring and forfaiting. It is in fact the only provider of international factoring, import factoring, domestic factoring and forfaiting services under one roof in India. GTF has established itself as a market leader in international factoring, providing improved value added services to its clients, and aims to be the premier export and import solution provider in India offering professional quality services on an e-commerce platform.
Along with its other partners, such as the IFC, and following the success of GTF in India, FIMBank is committed to introducing factoring services in various countries, especially in emerging markets, where it is either nascent or not available and where exports are made to developed markets. Factoring provides exporters in these countries a risk-free alternative to letters of credit and with it the opportunity to grow their business. In fact, FIMBank sees factoring as a specialised service that is distinct from the receivable financing services generally offered by banks. It is complementary to its own trade services and vital to fulfilling the specialised needs of small and medium businesses. Factoring can be seen as a catalyst to the growth of international trade, especially in developing countries exporting to the more developed countries.
FIMBank is now actively pursuing its strategy to add factoring to its core activities through a network of internationally operated factoring joint venture companies. Discussions are currently underway with potential partners in Egypt, UAE and other locations.
For more information, kindly visit www.fimbank.com or www.gtfindia.com