At a signing ceremony with IDB President Luis Alberto Moreno, the Structured and Corporate Finance Department of the IDB announced today that Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria de Colombia S.A. (BBVA Colombia) is joining it’s the IDB’s Trade Finance Facilitation Program (TFFP).
Under the TFFP, the IDB extends guarantees to cover letters of credit, promissory notes, bid bonds, performance bonds, advance payment bonds and other instruments used in international trade transactions. BBVA Colombia is already a confirming bank for the TFFP, under BBVA Spain’s Confirming Bank Agreement. Joining as a TFFP issuing bank will enable BBVA Colombia to benefit from opportunities arising in intraregional trade finance transactions.
TFFPLaunched and rolled out in 2005, the TFFP is an effective tool for the IDB to support economic reactivation and growth through the expansion of financing available for international trade activities in Latin American and Caribbean countries. The TFFP currently consists of a network of 134 confirming banks belonging to 61 different international banking groups in over 37 countries, and 31 issuing banks in 14 Latin American and Caribbean countries, with over $577 million in approved credit lines. To date, the IDB has issued guarantees for over $266 million in support of 301 individual international trade transactions totaling $346 million.
Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria de Colombia S.A. (BBVA Colombia)BBVA Colombia is the Colombian subsidiary of BBVA, a global financial services group with 502 billion euro in total assets, more than 47 million clients, 8,208 branches and 111,913 employees in more than 30 countries on four continents.
With BBVA Colombia, another member of the BBVA group is joining the TFFP as an issuing bank (after BBVA Banco Francés of Argentina). In 2007, BBVA added all its Latin American subsidiaries as confirming banks under the TFFP, highlighting the importance assigned by BBVA to further strengthening the group’s trade finance business in Latin America.