ITFA BOARD MEMBER PERSPECTIVES by Paul Coles, ITFA Board Member - Market Practice

Working as a member of the ITFA Board is a very rewarding task, but one which also comes with a lot of responsibility and has its own challenges.

All the board members act on a voluntary basis and therefore make time for the association in addition to their day jobs and personal lives. Each board member has a dedicated role, and collectively we all work closely together in the interests of the association’s members.

But how do we decide what to focus our efforts on?

The most important thing to remember is that we are here to support, promote and educate our industry. The key channels for us are the Regional Committees and the Market Practice Committee, along with the recently created Insurance Committee which has brought us new members from a different investor class and covers a rapidly developing form of risk distribution.

The Regional Committees are there to give us guidance on what are the burning issues in the market, and act as the voice of our members. The more active the committee, the more we can dedicate our attention to what’s relevant. Whilst we can sometimes second-guess or have our own views on how to drive the association and the trade industry (and the secondary market in particular), we rely on our members’ input and suggestions.

The same goes for the Market Practice Committee and Insurance Committee, where we thrive on matters that are brought to our attention either through the Regional Committees or directly, and that deserve to be investigated further or opined on.

Active Regional Committees are also the drivers of a number of great and recurring events that are put on for our members, helping to bring them up to date on any issues, and to provide them with regular networking opportunities.

A number of events (free for members) are regularly organised thanks to this, such as in Germany, London, Spain, the Netherlands and Singapore over the past months, and ITFA often co-sponsors the events in the interest of deploying our resources efficiently.

The Market Practice Committee also looks at deploying resources where a collective market view can be beneficial, one such example being the commissioning of the CRR Article 194 legal opinion on behalf of both ITFA and BAFT members. This initiative provided significant value to members who would need to have a legal opinion on file as to the effectiveness of using the BAFT MPA as an eligible credit risk mitigant in the context of European Basel 3 legislation.

The committee is constantly looking into any new issues that arise, and in turn how we can address them or educate our members as to how our business could be impacted. Current work in progress includes looking into IFRS9, contributing to the BAFT MPA update process, instructing and financing the renewal of the CRR Article 194 legal opinion, and our previous work with Moody’s around Supply Chain Finance methodology, to name but a few.

Similarly, the Insurance Committee has spent a lot of time looking into the Insurance Act of 2015 and how it impacts the industry, together with creating the Insurance Guidelines document that is available to our members. These guidelines provide a wealth of information on how to ensure that policies are CRR compliant, amongst other matters.

More critically, we are always keen to organise a stimulating annual conference that includes great content together with an ideal opportunity for attendees to develop meaningful connections with other participants in the market.

Aside from the content itself, the logistics involved in choosing a suitable location can be highly complex: finding an interesting venue, in a hotel that can host the conference itself and accommodate all the participants is harder than it sounds, especially if it’s not an anodyne purpose-built conference hotel next to an airport!

There were 30 responses from the feedback survey at our last annual conference in Warsaw, and the results are below:

Q15 With respect to next year's ITFA Annual Conference 2017, if held in one of the following destinations, which would you prefer and be mostly likely to attend, including consideration for approvals within your organisation:

Using this feedback, and deciding that it was time to hold the conference in the UK to increase its accessibility this year, we also decided that Cape Town should be next year’s venue, with a view to supporting our business on the African continent.

Whilst we understand that different venues create pros and cons in terms of travel approvals for our delegates, we have to strike a delicate balance between taking it to new destinations in order to promote our industry, and pleasing our existing members and regular conference attendees.

The important point to make clear is that the conference remains exceptional value, when you consider that:

• You can meet a great number of market participants in one location, rather than needing to travel to multiple destinations.
• The conference costs are all-inclusive and include the business content, meals, entertainment, transfers and accommodation, all designed to keep attendees together throughout the conference to promote the networking opportunities.
• Furthermore, the association membership fees pay for themselves if more than one member attends the conference (vs the non-member delegate cost).

That being said, we remain focused on finding economical solutions whenever possible, such as finding co-sponsors for events, travelling at our respective bank’s cost whenever practicable, and so on, and therefore save the association significant cost throughout the year.

This enables us to use the funds for the greater good of the industry, by presenting at other related conferences, organising and/or co-sponsoring the free regional events, and so on.

We look forward to members’ constructive input on any of these matters, and indeed invite them to assist us in shaping the way the association acts, as ultimately our scarcest resources are time and good ideas!