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Global supply chain finance (SCF) provider Harbor Trade Credit has appointed Joaquín Jiménez Krijgsman to lead its market and business development operations in Europe.

Jiménez, who is based in the Netherlands, will also focus on the Miami-headquartered firm’s attempts to position Harbor as the leading import finance solution in Colombia.

He previously spent 13 years at ING’s commercial banking arm, most recently as director of working capital solutions. He also served as head of supply chain finance, with roles based in Amsterdam and Moscow.

Jiménez was also sales director at Capital Chains, an Amsterdam-based consultancy firm that works with corporates, financial institutions and fintech platforms on their SCF arrangements.

Though working capital finance is an increasingly crowded market, Harbor’s co-founder and president Bryan Maloney tells GTR that the company differentiates itself by targeting smaller suppliers that are often overlooked by larger buyers.

“The biggest benefit for a buyer to improve cashflow is to go after the top-tier suppliers and include them in an SCF programme, where onboarding comes with a low workload,” he says.

“As you go further down the spectrum of suppliers, in aggregate the benefit of the programme makes a lot of sense – but because it’s so granular, the workload to actually onboard those suppliers onto a programme is near impossible. There is a lot of work that goes into that, both for the bank and the platform providers.”

Jiménez explains that he intends to resolve that issue by using technology to simplify the process of onboarding tier two and three suppliers, which is normally a “lot of work” as it involves know-your-customer (KYC) checks on numerous smaller firms.

Harbor acts as a purchase vehicle for the buyer, paying suppliers upfront without purchasing receivables. It then invoices the buyer at their desired payment terms, meaning they benefit from “operational efficiency and extended payment terms, without having to mistreat or squeeze smaller suppliers”.

“We are not competing with traditional supply chain finance providers,” he tells GTR. “We want to add value in the segment that nobody wants to touch, and deliver what buyers need in a fair way.”