Hamburg-based fintech TrustBills, which provides a marketplace for trade receivables, has appointed Hoi Fung as head of sales and plans to make further senior hires in the coming months.

Fung, who will join the company in March, was previously a senior structurer at German logistics provider Trascon GmbH, responsible for structuring securitisation transactions. He previously held multiple roles at HSH Nordbank, now Hamburg Commercial Bank, over an eight-year period.

TrustBills says Fung will have responsibility for sales of existing and future products, including the company’s flagship invoice exchange platform and a Track & Pay service due to launch in Q3 this year.

Fung says its marketplace product “disrupted the factoring market as well as supply chain finance” during 2020, with the company experiencing strong growth during a “difficult year” for firms struggling with liquidity management.

Jörg Hörster, TrustBills’ founder and chief executive, tells GTR that Fung’s hire is “a first step, and further senior hires will follow in the course of the year”.

Hörster says the company was able to on-board several large firms to the platform over the last year, while its partnership with Ebury “is also bearing fruit, especially with mid-caps that are equally important to us as large-caps”.

Meanwhile, the company’s launch of Track & Pay, which is being developed in cooperation with Lufthansa Industry Solutions, is on course for a Q3 launch this year.

The product is intended to rival the use of traditional letters of credit, linking invoice payments to the fulfilment of certain pre-agreed tasks.

It involves the development of a “cheap, light and battery-efficient” piece of hardware that reports its location and movement, such as the transition from a truck to a forklift, or a forklift to a warehouse, Hörster explains.

Working on the same platform as TrustBills’ receivables exchange, the service is currently undergoing testing.