Former Country Managing Director at Coface Joins ICBA Sweden

By Curt Hässler

As of January 1, 2012, the former Managing Director of Coface for the Nordic countries, Mikael Szabo, has joined ICBA Sweden, known also as Söderberg & Partners, in Stockholm, Sweden. ICBA is the largest broker of financial services in Scandinavia. Szabo had been with Coface since 2001, and had held the positions of Country and General Manager for Hungary, Slovakia, and Sweden as well as Managing Director of Coface Norden Services A/S in Denmark.
 
After such a long time working at a global insurer, I began looking for another way to expand my skills and knowledge, and what is more logical than to join a brokerage that deals with all aspects and suppliers within this exciting business? Having made this decision, ICBA Sweden was the natural step to take: On one hand Söderberg dominates the Swedish financial advisory market and on the other hand ICBA is the most expansive and exciting network of trade credit insurance and political risk specialists in the industry.
 
In my Coface years I had the opportunity to see how effectively ICBA works with its clients and how well-organised the ICBA group is. It is with great joy that I take on this new challenge! - Mikael Szabo, after one month on board as Partner at ICBA Sweden.

(Curt Hässler is Head of Credit Insurance with ICBA Sweden, Söderberg & Partners, in Stockholm)

ICBA Australia and New Zealand now has official licence in Singapore

By Kirk Cheesman, originally published in part, in National Credit Insurance (NCI) News

As of November 27, 2011, ICBA Australia and New Zealand welcomes it's new branch office in Singapore: NCI Brokers (ASIA) PTE LTD.

For two years, NCI has been working towards a licence in Singapore. The approval of this licence is a significant step for ICBA's growth in the Asia Pacific region. Ten year ICBA veteran, Sally Wilkinson has moved to Singapore to set-up the new operations.

ICBA Australia, New Zealand and now Singapore is excited to be able to offer specialist services to clients in Asia from a more local location. After all, ICBA is known for the advantages of its "glocal" service. ICBA currently has offices in 30 countries on five continents. ICBA partners combine local service and expertise with global coordination to provide trade, credit and political risk insurance solutions for multinational companies.

(Kirk Cheesman is Managing Director of ICBA Australia and New Zealand, National Credit Insurance (Brokers) Pty Ltd and a Director of NCI Brokers (Asia) Pte Ltd)

Getting Professional Advice about Credit Insurance and Political Risk is Critical to Your Business Success

By Ron Doyle

As this blog is being written, world financial markets are again in turmoil as the situation in Greece has again reached crisis proportions. The Greek Government is putting the acceptance of the Euro aid package to a referendum. European governments had reached an accord to hopefully avoid a disastrous collapse by Greece - which may trigger another recession – but with the latest news from Greece, all is in flux again.

Even when reading some of the many articles outlining the details of the bail-out agreement, there remains a number of problems, the largest of which is that the agreement requires banks holding Greek debt to absorb a write-off of 50%.

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ICBA brokers in 30 countries across 5 continents

ICBA offers trade credit solutions to multinational companies. The organization has a global footprint and provides local intelligence for multinational trade insurance needs.

Established in 1999, the ICBA organization has expanded. As of October 2011, ICBA brokers are found in over 50 offices, in 30 countries, across five continents. ICBA uses a glocal approach — local service by the world’s largest global team of independent trade credit risk insurance brokerages.

Download the ICBA updated Overview brochure (PDF) here.

ICBA quick facts and values:

• Specialised trade credit and political risk insurance solutions
• Glocal approach: Local service and expertise with the support of a global team
• More than 175 billion Euros annually in global trade sales
• Over 7000 clients worldwide, served by over 10 000 policies
• Employs more than 350 insurance specialists globally

Trade credit and Political Risk Event of Early September 2011: what more will Germany do?

Submitted by ICBA Asia, Brazil, India and the USA via the IRC Read & Delete Monthly

Angela Merkel’s German government has long been reluctant to bail out the profligate members of its currency union. But does she really have a choice? As of Year End 2010, German banks held nearly 760 billion Euros in long-term bonds from Portugal, Ireland, Italy, Greece and Spain (PIIGS). More than half of that exposure is to Italian and Spanish bonds. Governments usually have four options for managing the value of their currency in response to a debt crisis: inflate, deflate, devalue, and default.

Germany can react in only two ways: bail out PIIGS or bail out German banks. Unfortunately, the choice won't be easy. The German electorate wants to punish its spendthrift neighbors for their bad habits but Merkel doesn't want to preside over the decline of European economic cooperation or the fall of the Euro.

A 7 September 2011, Reuters article reported, “Germany's top court rejected a series of lawsuits aimed at blocking the participation of Europe's biggest economy in emergency loan packages but it handed the country's parliament greater say over euro zone bailouts.”

The ICBA blog will report further on European economies in crisis and how ICBA trade credit insurance and political risk clients can be better prepared. Follow the ICBA blog - subscribe via RSS!

(The Political Risk Event of the Month blog post will be a recurring post, on a sporadic basis, at the ICBA blog. ICBA Asia, Brazil, India and the USA, which is International Risk Consultants, Inc. (IRC), has agreed to continue to share these "event" posts with the ICBA blog.)