OREANDA-NEWS. December 02, 2013. In the course of the 10-th Intergovernmental Open Session of the Russian-British Committee on Trade and Investment, Alfa-Bank represented by John Traynor, Head of Transaction Banking and ECGD represented by John Snowdon, Head of Project Marketing, signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU).

Under the MoU it is envisaged that Alfa-Bank will receive from ECGD, the official Export Credit Agency of the British Government, a 50 mln USD line of credit facility on favourable terms consistent with the OECD Arrangement on Guidelines for Officially Supported Export Credits. The line of credit will be used to finance contracts entered into by Russian companies with British exporters. Eligible contracts will be in the value band of 1m to 25m pound and therefore likely to be of particular benefit even to smaller companies and exporters. It is hoped that the financing made available by ECGD and Alfa Bank under these arrangements will help to promote further growth in trade between Russia and the UK.

Alfa Bank is the first Russian bank to have signed such a Memorandum with ECGD.

"For us it is a great honour to be the first Russian bank to have signed the memorandum. This initiative gives evidence of our team’s high professionalism and recognized achievements not only in the Russian market, but in the international markets as well, — said John Traynor, Head of Transaction Banking at Alfa-Bank. — We consider this cooperation of strategic importance, and consistent with our aim to develop further financing solutions for our customers with largest partner countries".

Alfa-Bank is one of the largest players in the market of trade finance among other Russian banks. Solid and highly professional counterparties in the international market make it possible for the Bank to offer profit-making and convenient solutions for financing export-import transactions, including those for 10 years tenor with the involvement of export credit agencies.

The Bank’s current trade finance portfolio is over 2 bn USD, including projects in 25 regions of its presence.

In 2013, the Bank was ranked by Trade Finance among TOP-5 trade finance banks, becoming the only one Russian private bank highly praised by this authoritative British magazine.