Trade finance veteran Daniel Cotti has launched Cotti Trade & Treasury (CTT), an advisory service for the trade finance and treasury management industry.

The company specialises in providing advice to banks, companies, investors, regulators, government agencies and industry associations around the world.

“My goal is to provide thought leadership, industry expertise, business insights and consultant services in the field that I was fortunate to work in all my career. CTT allows me to leverage all my experience at the strategic and the execution level and all my contacts in the industry,” reads a blog entry from Cotti on his website.

He tells GTR: “Both trade finance and treasury spaces are in change mode: there are a lot of new players coming in and both spaces are tremendously challenged – especially for banks.”

He explains that he will be offering advice on a strategic level, encompassing products, solutions and people: “solving the what, how and who”, he says. “At the moment it’s not transaction-specific, but I wouldn’t exclude that going forward.”

As part of this new service, Cotti will be teaming up with fellow consultant service providers around the world. “The idea is to create a network of partnerships with other people in the trade finance and treasury space and team up with them to provide solutions to clients,” he says, adding that this will be done on a case-by-case basis.

The first of these partnerships is with Treasury Strategies (TSI), a Chicago-based consulting firm.

Cotti has 36 years of banking experience working for, among others, Citibank, ABN Amro and RBS, His most recent role was as head of global trade at JP Morgan, which he left last year. Pravin Advani succeeded him in the position in March this year.