Based out of the company’s Singapore headquarters, the senior banking executive will focus on paving the path for the next phase of the startup’s growth.
Cross-border trade finance digitalization platform dltledgers has hired Farooq Siddiqi as its co-CEO, a role he shares with founder Samir Neji, it announced in a statement on Wednesday.
Farooq joins dltledgers from Falcon Group, where he was its Asia Pacific chief executive, responsible for formulating regional strategy and contributing to global business delivery. He previously spent two decades at Standard Chartered bank, where he was its global head of trade financing.
He will focus on geographic expansion, deploying the company’s recently launched Trade Finance Registry, and leading the launch of SmartFIN, an SME financing program, the announcement said.
Opportunities Ahead
dltledgers has big plans to grow its scope and reach with the appointment, and plans include introducing innovative transactional lending models for supplier financing and inventory financing, such that platform customers can immediately benefit from next-generation risk management models. The company said it hopes to leverage its data to create a more sophisticated framework for managing risk and liquidity within global trade finance in the long term.
«We see huge expectation gaps between the seekers and financiers in the market, due to the volatility and risks involved in financing,» Neji said.
Since its inception three years ago, dltledgers has digitized over S$3 billion worth of cross-border trades spanning 28 countries on four continents. It is currently in the midst of a funding round to support further expansion in 2021.
