Dubai: Etihad Credit Insurance (ECI), the UAE Federal export credit company, signed an MoU with First Abu Dhabi Bank (FAB) and Crediti Fintech for the implementation of the ‘UAE Trade Finance Gateway’.
The ’Trade Finance Gateway’ platform aims at easing the access of UAE exporters and re-exporters to financing, as well as support the growth of SMEs, thus enabling them to contributee to the UAE’s industrial strategy ‘Operation 300bn’.
Supported by the UAE Ministry of Economy, as an example of Public Private Partnership approach, the project seeks to position ECI as the main gateway of exporters and re-exporters to trade credit and financial solutions that will be provided by commercial banks and financial institutions, whereby Monimove fintech platform is the technology backbone.
FAB is the first commercial bank to join this initiative and other commercial banks are expected to follow, confirming the strength of the UAE banking system in the UAE, capable to address the key financial needs of the businesses.
“The project will tackle a number of challenges faced by exporters and re-exporters in obtaining finance to fund their working capital requirements, such as restricted availability of finance to smaller enterprises, cumbersome and confusing process to obtain finance, the inability of customers to understand best-fit product or solution, lack of infrastructure to execute digitalized documentation, and time-consuming and lengthy process,” said Massimo Falcioni, CEO of Etihad Credit Insurance.
Through this partnership, exporters and re-exporters will benefit from seamless and fast access to financing solutions bringing together the insurer, banks and exporters in one unified platform. ECI insurance cover will enable exporting SMEs to obtain collateralised loans from FAB leveraging the advanced technology of MoniMove platform.
SMEs will benefit from an end-to-end digitised process encouraging smooth collaboration between all parties and accelerating access to financing products.
“Through this innovative partnership with ECI and Crediti Fintech, we will be able to extend our expertise to an expanding range of UAE businesses, offering vital support to exporters of all sizes,” said Shireesh Bhide, Head of Corporate, Commercial and International Banking at FAB.
