Société Générale on the hunt for new Asia trade finance head
(22 November 2019 – Singapore) Société Générale’s regional heads of trade and commodities finance for Asia Pacific, Timothy Siow and Damien de Rosny, have resigned from the Paris-based lender.
The bank maintained that it remained active in natural resources financing as a core area of expertise.
France’s third largest lender confirmed in earlier releases that it would review the operations of several investment banking units in order to cut costs in addition to incurring sizeable trade finance losses associated with the Singapore bunker fuel market. The announcement has raised concerns among Singapore domiciled shipping fuel traders that it may curtail financing services to the sector. Commodities trading relies heavily on credit lines provided by banks and ‘SocGen’ is a significant competitor in the sector. East & Partners recently released its findings of who the best trade and supply chain bank in Asia is based on research with 1,2000 treasury and finance executives among the top 100 corporates as measured by annual revenues in 13 markets.
“Société Générale remains committed to trade commodities finance at the global level and in Asia” the Bank confirmed in a statement.
“Banks are certainly a lot more vigilant in the marine fuels sector at this time, and are asking themselves more questions as to the support they should be providing in light of a number of hits different banks have taken” said a Singapore oil trader risk management executive.
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