Trade finance as a financial asset: Risks and mitigants for non-bank investors

Author's Biography

Robert M. Kowit is senior vice president at Federated Investors, Inc. (Federated), which he joined in 1995 to start the international fixed income operation. Robert has spent his entire 43-year career in the international bond and foreign exchange markets, working as a vice president of White Weld, senior vice president at Kidder Peabody, director at Midland Montagu and senior vice president at John Hancock, before joining Federated. In these previous capacities he came into contact with trade finance assets and thought they would provide a unique source of alpha in federated international bond portfolios. Robert has spoken at many conferences around the world about the importance of attracting more financial investors to trade finance. In the post-crisis period of 1998, Robert was invited to speak at the World Bank/ IMF annual meeting on the topic of the importance of developing local capital markets in order to avoid future currency crises. Robert received his AB from Washington University in St Louis and his MBA in finance from Iona College.

William May is a senior vice president and the FRM programme manager in GARP’s Research and Educational Programs area. William has over 20 years of market experience, including serving as a senior director in Fitch Ratings’ credit market research group and as a senior research officer at UBS Wealth Management. He has worked for several buy-side and sell-side firms, including Bank of America and Federated as well as specialty firms like Andrew Kalotay Associates and the Law and Economic Consulting Group. He began his career in the research function of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and has worked on the Open Market Trading Desk and as a bank examiner. William has served as an associate professor of finance and graduate programme director at Manhattanville College and has taught in the MBA programme at StonyBrook University’s College of Business. He holds a BS in applied mathematics and economics from SUNY Stony Brook, an MBA and an MA in economics from Fordham University and an MS in financial engineering from Polytechnic University. William is currently a graduate student studying applied statistics at Columbia University’s Teachers College.

Erick Rengifo is an associate professor in the economics department at Fordham University. Erick is an active scholar with interests in trade finance, intra- and inter-regional markets development, emerging and frontier markets investments, risk management, market microstructure, behavioural finance, insurance, socio-economic development, microfinance, micro-insurance and econometrics. He is a private consultant in the fields of export financing, mining investments in Latin America, algorithmic trading, emerging and frontier markets investments, risk management, microfinance and micro-insurance. He is also the founder and director of the Center for International Policy Studies, a centre specialising in economic and social development, with an extensive network around the globe. Erick holds a PhD in economics with a concentration in finance and econometrics from the Catholic University of Louvain-Belgium.