Last week, the Trade Treasury Payments Awards brought together banks, corporates, and industry leaders to recognise excellence across trade, treasury, and payments. With the winners announced, we are going to take a deeper look at the institutions named Best Trade Finance Bank for their region.

This year’s Best Trade Finance Bank winners stand out for their willingness to stay active in regions where and at times when others have stepped back. They have combined balance sheet strength with structuring expertise and increasingly digital delivery models to support everything from food and fuel imports to energy transition projects and complex cross-border supply chains.

What follows is a look at the submissions that earned these institutions recognition as the Best Trade Finance Bank for their region at the Trade Treasury Payments Awards.

Best Trade Finance Bank – Middle East & North Africa

Winner: British Arab Commercial Bank (BACB)

British Arab Commercial Bank (BACB) was recognised as Best Trade Finance Bank for the Middle East and North Africa for its long-standing role in financing trade flows into markets where many international banks have pulled back.

With more than 50 years of experience in the region, BACB is one of the few international banks actively handling transactions across all seven North African countries, including Libya, Algeria, Mauritania, Egypt, Tunisia, Sudan, and Morocco. In 2025 alone, the bank facilitated over $2 billion of trade across the region, supporting the import of essential commodities such as grain, wheat, sugar, medicines, and fuel.

Alongside direct financing, BACB also distributed more than $780 million of trade assets to partner banks and insurers, helping to bring additional liquidity and risk capacity into markets that are often viewed as difficult to serve.

The bank combines local presence and international reach, with representative offices in Tripoli and Algiers working alongside multilingual teams in London to manage transactions end to end and maintain close relationships with local corporates and financial institutions.

Beyond day-to-day trade flows, BACB also supported larger strategic projects, including the Zallaf Libya South Refinery Project, where it helped structure trade finance facilities for long-lead equipment imports. The deal is expected to help strengthen Libya’s energy infrastructure and support economic activity in the country’s south.

Best Trade Finance Bank – Latin America

Winner: SMBC

SMBC was recognised as Best Trade Finance Bank for Latin America for the role it plays in keeping trade and investment moving across the region’s many core sectors, from energy and infrastructure to consumer goods and agriculture.

In Chile, the bank helped finance a portfolio of renewable energy projects (valued at more than $1 billion) that supported the construction of solar plants, wind farms, and large-scale battery energy storage systems. The bank used import letters of credit to help clients bring battery equipment into the country and bridge supplier payments, which allowed critical components to arrive on time and projects to stay on schedule. This facility, therefore, helped bring additional clean power capacity into the national grid, which will allow Chile to accelerate its decarbonisation plans.

Beyond project finance, SMBC provides more than $7 billion each year in trade loans and letter of credit structures to local banks across Mexico, Brazil, Colombia, Peru, and Chile. These efforts help those local banks to maintain access to international liquidity and continue financing domestic importers and exporters. SMBC has also led large-scale working capital programmes for corporates, including a $500 million syndicated supply chain finance facility for Peruvian consumer goods group Alicorp, which is now supported by 13 banks. 

SMBC has focused its trade finance activity on sectors that underpin everyday economic life, from power generation to food and consumer staples, providing stability to trade flows across Latin America.

Best Trade Finance Bank – North America

Winner: TD Securities

TD Securities was recognised as Best Trade Finance Bank for North America for a broad modernisation of its trade and working capital platform, that is aimed at making cross-border trade faster and less dependent on paper-heavy processes.

The bank invested heavily in digital infrastructure to simplify how letters of credit and guarantees are issued and managed. By implementing structured SWIFT MT798 messaging and integrating with platforms such as Komgo, TD Securities replaced document-driven workflows with secure, standardised communication, that gives clients near real-time visibility into their transaction status.

The impact is most visible at the border. Under Canada’s new customs framework, TD Securities became one of the first banks authorised to issue letters of credit for use as digital financial security in place of traditional customs bonds. For importers, this has meant that goods can be released from customs more quickly, which often helps to free up working capital, and avoids the friction that often slows shipments.

Beyond digitisation, TD Securities also expanded its export credit agency capabilities, helping clients access additional liquidity for cross-border projects. To date, the bank has closed more than $20 billion in ECA-backed loans supporting the exports, infrastructure, and renewable energy investments, that sustain jobs and economic growth across North America and partner markets.

Best Trade Finance Bank – East Asia & Pacific

Winner: Bank of America

Bank of America was recognised as Best Trade Finance Bank for East Asia & Pacific for modernising supply chain finance across a region that remains the backbone of global manufacturing.

Geopolitical tensions and an array of other disruptions have forced many companies to rethink their sourcing strategies, which has made access to working capital increasingly more important, particularly for those smaller suppliers that often operate with thin margins. Bank of America has aimed to help in this regard by focusing on removing the friction caused by manual processes, lengthy documentation, and paper-heavy onboarding that can delay funding for weeks

By digitising supplier onboarding and automating verification through third-party data sources, the bank cut onboarding times by around 60 per cent, which means that suppliers who previously waited weeks to join a programme can now access early payment in days.

The bank also expanded its Corporate Payment Undertaking structure across markets, including Australia, Singapore, South Korea, and Thailand. Rather than requiring complex receivables purchases, the model allows approved invoices to be paid quickly with minimal documentation, opening the door for more suppliers, including smaller and “tail-end” firms that are often excluded from traditional programmes. 

Faster payments help suppliers keep production lines running while buyers benefit from stronger relationships and fewer disruptions. When this happens in a region that is a critical production hub for the global economy, it can translate directly into more stable trade.

Best Trade Finance Bank – Global

Winner: SMBC

SMBC was also recognised at the global level as the Best Trade Finance Bank

The bank continues to deploy more than $15 billion annually in trade and working capital commitments to support corporates and financial institutions with a full spectrum of solutions spanning import finance, guarantees, deferred payment letters of credit, and large, syndicated supply chain programmes. 

In project and infrastructure finance, SMBC structured trade facilities that allowed critical equipment to be imported and suppliers to be paid ahead of long-term financing close, helping projects stay on schedule. In working capital, the bank has led and coordinated multi-bank programmes that give corporates deeper liquidity buffers and more predictable cash conversion, while strengthening relationships across their supplier bases.

Equally important is the bank’s role behind the scenes with financial institutions. By confirming, discounting, and reimbursing letters of credit and extending trade loans to partner banks, SMBC helps ensure that trade credit continues to reach local markets,  particularly where access to international liquidity can otherwise be constrained.

That combination of structuring depth, syndication capability, and global reach sets SMBC apart and has earned it the title of the Best Trade Finance Bank Globally at the Trade Treasury Payments Awards.

 

The full list of award winners is now available on the TTP Awards Winners page