Trade Finance Structuring & Execution – Associate (BEX team/Middle office)

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BBVA is a global company with more than 160 years of history that operates in more than 25 countries where we serve more than 80 million customers. We are more than 121,000 professionals working in multidisciplinary teams with profiles as diverse as financiers, legal experts, data scientists, developers, engineers and designers.

The GTB UK Business Execution (BEX) team supports the trade finance function by acting as a middle office team. Their key role includes optimizing process flows, collaborating with, and actively supporting the front office (Sales) team, back office team, and relevant stakeholders. By doing so, they enhance efficiency and ensure seamless coordination across trade finance and working capital activities.

About the job:

We are seeking a highly motivated and experienced Trade Finance Middle Office Specialist to join our dynamic team in London. You will play a critical role in supporting the origination and distribution of Trade Finance and Working Capital (WC) solutions, acting as a key liaison between front-office transaction bankers, back-office operations, and clients.

This position is part of the GTB UK Business Management & Execution (BEX) team, focusing on trade finance structuring and execution. The role is crucial for day-to-day operations, enhancing process efficiencies, promoting effective coordination and collaboration, and maintaining robust risk controls.

Provide commercial management and customer service to a specific client portfolio, acting as a link between Transaction Bankers and Back Office. Monitor daily operations of the branch, including every task related to trade finance, vworking capital, current accounts, payments, collections and deposits.

Structure and execute trade finance transactions, offering to BBVA clients a wide range of standard trade finance instruments and customized solutions to cover clients’ import/export financing needs.

This role requires a strong understanding of trade finance products, regulations, and risk management.

• Transaction Management: Manage the full lifecycle of trade finance transactions, from structuring leading to execution of new transactions until termination, including portfolio monitoring, amendments, and negotiations.

• Client Relationship Management : Maintain strong client relationships, providing excellent customer service and commercial management. Act as the primary point of contact for clients on post-trade operational and documentary matters, ensuring smooth transaction processing. This includes transactions from both primary and secondary markets.

• Transaction Structuring: Participate in transaction structuring and client meetings as required.

• Loan and Financial Management: Register bilateral loans and money market withdrawals, manage SCF deals, onboard suppliers, update interest rates, and issue bid offers.

• Collaboration: Liaise with offshore operations teams (HUB) for booking, monitoring, and resolving issues related to funded and unfunded trade finance instruments (L/Cs, Guarantees, SBLCs, discounts, factoring, Promissory notes(PN), bills of exchange, supply chain finance(SCF) and various Working capital solutions).

• KYC and Documentation Support: Support KYC documentation, verify client signatures, and manage the internal and external distribution of all relevant documentation.

• Reporting: Prepare MIS reports on deals, maturities, and overdue transactions.

• Compliance Management: Manage compliance-related activities, including reporting on collections, transfers, and suspicious payments to the Compliance Department.

• Approval Coordination: Obtain necessary approvals from various departments (Risk, Compliance, Legal, Asset Allocation, IFI, Country Risk) for GTB transactions. Ensuring archiving relevant documentation for audit purposes.

• Manage inter-branch transactions (issuance of Guarantees or SBLCs between BBVA branches).

• Operational Risk Management: Contribute to identifying and mitigating operational risks, ensuring adherence to BBVA’s policies and procedures.

• Ability to adapt and support various business execution functions related with distribution, cash management and monitoring functionalities.

Qualifications

• Degree educated in Banking, Finance or other equivalent.

• Solid experience of Trade Finance(TF) products in middle office related to working capital products, trade syndications and structured trade products, preferably with large British/Northern European corporates.

• At least 5 to 7 years of experience and in-depth technical knowledge of the funded, unfunded, secondary market TF products, including mass receivables, forfaiting, discount, invoice financing, SCF and risk participation, with proficiency in structuring, reviewing facility documentation and execution.

• Proficient in MS Excel spreadsheet, creating and supporting macros.

• In depth knowledge of Trade Finance booking and monitoring systems.

• Knowledge of Google suite products, Docusign, MS suite (Word, Excel and PowerPoint).

• Excellent communication, negotiation, problem solving skills.

• Ability to work independently and as part of a team, managing multiple priorities under pressure.

• Fluency in English; Spanish (spoken and written) is highly preferred.

• Knowledge of Google suite products, KOMGO will be an added advantage.

• GTB/Trade Finance training qualifications are highly valued.

The Difference You Will Make

• Identifying and mitigating operational risks.

• Improving processes and controls.

• Providing excellent customer service.

• Achieving challenging goals through collaboration and negotiation.

• Working effectively under pressure and managing large volumes of information.

Skills: