Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation (SMBC) has announced a string of appointments within its global trade finance team.

Eli Hassine, global head of export and agency finance, and Mini Roy, director and head of export and agency finance, have both left the bank.

Takashi Shimahara, who previously co-ran the bank’s global trade finance with Hassine, has assumed full responsibility of the bank’s global export and agency finance, and trade finance businesses.

The bank informs GTR that Hassine left in mid-August for “personal reasons” and that Roy departed a few weeks later “to pursue other opportunities”.

Hassine and Roy had both left Citi on March 31, 2008, and joined SMBC shortly after. They were brought on board to help innovate the bank’s product suite globally.

A bank spokesperson says: “The regional heads of the global trade finance department’s export and agency finance business remain as Jonathan Joseph-Horne for the Emea region, who will now assume additional global coordination responsibilities, and Makiko Yamamoto for Asia (excluding Japan) while Rafael Cervantes will be the acting head for the Americas region.”

Kazuo Yoshimura will assume responsibility for all trade products in the Americas region.

John Turnbull, Hiromitsu Otsu, and Yoshihisa Abe remain in their posts as global head of structured trade and commodity finance, regional head for the global trade finance department in Asia (excluding Japan), and global head of supply chain finance, respectively.