Fimbank has appointed Armin Eckermann to head up the banking division of the group. In this role he will be leading a team servicing Fimbank’s corporate clients, institutional and financial clients as well as the pre-demolition finance and all core banking activities of the Fimbank group.

Eckermann’s new role follows his departure from Standard Bank earlier this year, where he covered a number of different positions, initially overseeing all structured lending products in mining and metals, energy finance as well as structured commodity finance. At the beginning of 2007, he took control of the newly formed global product unit structured trade finance and services department. He has also previously worked for WestLB, and for close to six years, until the end of 2005, he was global head of commodity finance.

Before 2000, he worked for WestLB in South America, establishing the commodity business in Buenos Aires and Sao Paulo.  He also developed the commodity business hub in Singapore and was involved in the structuring of commodity-related financial transactions in the Middle East and Central Asia.

Eckermann is relocating from Dusseldorf to Malta and took up his new role this month.

Based in Malta, Fimbank’s strategy is to focus the emerging markets, focusing on trade finance, structured commodity finance, international factoring, forfaiting and supporting banking services.