ITFA annual meeting returns, this year in Split, Croatia

It’s official, TTP Studios has landed in Split!

During the ITFA Annual Meeting, TTP editors and co-hosts are unpacking the big debates and key themes from the week.

Should we really be financing defence and critical materials?
Can we distribute more trade assets to unlock capital in emerging markets?
Are stablecoins a geopolitical issue?
Is the media too nice, and what’s our true responsibility amongst transaction banking, payments and trade?
Could AI replace traditional trade education?

Pictured: TTP’s editor Deepesh Patel debates the top trends in distribution with Boris Jaquet, Deutsche Bank Corporate Bank, and Vipin Vashishtha, Standard Chartered at TTP Studios in Split.

• Capacity is concentrated rather than absent, with high barriers to entry leaving only a handful of insurers competing for the same cover
• Rising cargo values, not higher risk perception, are driving the growing need to distribute
• Insurance increasingly determines what banks can finance, from lending to non-client entities to underpinning the securitisation behind large receivables programmes
• Programmes are shifting from single-bank to multi-bank, forcing insurers to adapt to who they co-insure alongside
• Inventory finance is the next frontier, with rising demand held back by a lack of uniformity

1. Commodity trade finance is being pulled into strategic security and defence, driven by geopolitics and new world order. Corporates and governments now want supply chains secure, and that demand brings the financing need with it.
2. Defence has flipped the problem down the supply chain. Primes are cash rich, suppliers are cash starved, so the opportunity sits in supply chain and prepayment finance. The panel kept returning to funding the physical supply chain back to raw material, not the receivable at the end of the production.
3. Prepayment structures such as tolling are back in vogue. But good knowledge of the transaction and having teams on the ground to really monitor the deals are critical.
4. Cooperation is what’s needed at all levels, to support these new, longer tenor transactions—from ECA, MDB, credit insurance to equity funds—partnership will close the lending gap, particularly for emerging market producers.

Do you know your key legal trade templates and documents?

Geoff Wynne, partner at Sullivan and TTP editorial board member, and Paul Coles, ITFA Board member, talked the room through key legal templates at the ITFA 52nd Annual International Trade and Forfaiting Conference in Split. 

Here’s the rundown:

ITFA Unfunded MPA: Designed for parties intending to do unfunded risk participations only, particularly insurance companies, reinsurance companies and other nonbank participants.

CRR Legal Opinions: Sullivan issued legal opinions on the BAFT English and New York law MPAs and the ITFA Unfunded MPA.

ITFA MARA: Template for open account distribution on a funded basis under English law.

BAFT MPAs: Industry standard for secondary market trades, facilitates the buying and selling of trade finance related assets globally.

TTP are delighted to be official education partner at ITFA Croatia 2026.

The Emerging Leaders take to the stage at the ITFA annual conference in Croatia to present their projects.

First up, Harry Thursby-Pelham, Fluent in Finance, with his language learning inspired app for trade finance education, followed by Mohit Panjwani, with his Dynamic Trade Credit Intelligence Infrastructure (DTCII).

The final emerging leader presentation will take place tomorrow morning, with voting opening shortly thereafter.

Learn more about each of the finalists in our ITFA emerging Leaders 2026 article series from earlier this week.

• ITFA Emerging Leaders 2026: Harry Thursby-Pelham gets fluent in finance
• ITFA Emerging Leaders 2026: Mohit Panjwani puts trade data to work

1. We certainly haven’t seen the “boring twenties” as many people had perhaps hoped at the beginning of the decade.
2. Procurement, logistics, and treasury are increasingly using interrelated KPIs, where as historically they were quite siloed.
3. AI and technology are real things with tangible benefits now, after such a long period of time where they were just a discussion point. But that comes as a double edged sword as it also empowers malicious actors.
4. Rerouted shipping lanes around the globe have considerable knock on impacts for shipping, logistics, and trade finance.

The ITFA 2026 annual meeting is officially underway in Croatia.

In the opening keynote we heard from General Sir Patrick Sanders, KCB CBE DSO, Santander Senior Strategic Advisor about the global geopolitical situation and the impact that it has on Strategic defence priorities, particularly in Europe.

Some of our key takeaways:

1. The resilience of a supply chain is often determined by the smaller firms that can sit several tiers removed from the top layer.
2. Defence has a strategic component that goes well beyond typical procurement
3. There isn’t a single financial solution to defence capacity build up.
4. Deterrence is often built by things that don’t sound dramatic
5. Public finance will play an important role, but can’t do it all. Public finance should be used to crowd on private finance

As the worlds of defence and finance converge more and more, it will be important to heed the General’s reminder that ‘The best weapon is the one you never have to fire.’