Global Trade Finance, a joint venture company between FIMBank, is the second largest shareholder at 38.5 per cent after Export-Import Bank of India, which has a 40 per cent shareholding. IFC holds 12.5 per cent and Bank of Maharashtra (a leading public sector bank in India) nine per cent of the share capital.

GTF held their board meeting on 12 November in Malta for the first time. The meeting coincided with FIMBank’s board meeting, presenting an opportunity for interchanging of ideas and developing strategies.

GTF is the only provider of both factoring, and forfaiting services in India with its head office in Mumbai and offices in New Delhi, Bangalore, Hyderabad and Chennai.

It started operations in October 2001 and is now considered as the market leader in offering export-financing solutions to small and medium sized Indian exporters with a strong focus on products such as factoring and forfaiting.

GTF offers services that address the receivable discounting requirements of exporters in India, which also include domestic factoring, reverse factoring and Letter of Credit discounting.

GTF has just introduced Import Factoring; it is the first time this product will be available in India to enable Indian importers to do so on an open account basis

During the financial period 2004-2005 the company recorded an excellent all round performance. GTF recorded a total turnover of Rs19,130 millions ($418m), a growth of 136 per cent over the previous year’s turnover. Moreover, the net profit of the company was up 340 per cent at Rs66.9 million ($1.5 million) against the previous year’s profit.

Arvind Sonmale, managing director & CEO of GTF said: “During our board meeting in Malta the board discussed the company’s future growth prospects and identified opportunities for GTF to maintain the current healthy momentum. With the help and support of FIMBank, the technical partner in this joint venture, I am sure we will be able to devise a robust strategy in order to accomplish the targets set.”