David Lilley, head of forfaiting, global trade finance at SMBCE, and Charles Brough, head of forfaiting and trade finance Asia Pacific, at HVB Singapore, have been elected to the board of the International Forfaiting Association (IFA).

Lilley will be taking over responsibility for all the association’s regional committees.

The vote took place at the IFA’s annual conference, this year held between September 3 and 5 in Prague.

The meeting also saw two current board members, Sema Zeyneloglu and Paolo Provera, stand for re-election, and both were successfully voted back onto the board for another term.

Stepping down this year as treasurer was Norbert Fritsch from HypoVereinsbank, after six years of working for the IFA.

Unusually, for one year only, the IFA board will now have nine members. This is in anticipation of the fact that four members, including the chairman Lucio Matassoni, will be stepping down next year.

As well as the elections, the IFA conference featured a number of talks, including those covering the master risk participation documents, news on the collaborative efforts between the IFA and the ICC Commission, as well as updates on the primary document being developed as a universal guide for the forfaiting market. As usual there were also plenty of networking opportunities, with the annual gala dinner this year held in Prague’s St Agnes monastery.

Next year’s conference will be held in Rome.