Financial technology solutions provider MonetaGo has appointed Neil Shonhard as chief executive officer, effective immediately.

As part of the move, MonetaGo’s co-founder and current chief executive, Jesse Chenard, now transitions to the role of chairman, where he will continue to advise the management team.

Shonhard, based in Singapore, joined MonetaGo in June 2020 as managing director, Asia Pacific, before becoming company president in August 2021.

“Neil is a great leader for this new phase of development. As company president, he has driven MonetaGo’s success, meeting the stringent requirements of our clients in one of the most highly regulated industries on earth. As chief executive, he will take MonetaGo to the next level, making trade finance work better for everyone,” says Chenard.

MonetaGo’s Secure Financing platform, in operation since 2018, enables financial institutions to check for duplications of documents, from invoices to bills of lading, warehouse receipts and purchase orders, before deciding to finance them.

In September last year, the fintech company partnered with Swift in a pilot to connect its solution to over 11,000 Swift-connected financial institutions over the payments network’s API-enabled infrastructure. The company says it has processed over 3 million transactions so far.

In June this year, MonetaGo was authorised by the Association of Banks in Singapore to build the nation’s first trade finance registry, which will serve as a secure database for records of trade transactions financed across foreign and local banking institutions.

Before joining MonetaGo, Shonhard spent over 12 years at financial services firm TP ICAP and previously held senior roles at securities firms Tradition Securities and Futures in London, and Nittan Capital Finance in Tokyo.

“I am humbled to be taking the reins as CEO at such a pivotal time, and I look forward to collectively building on the work done so far to lead the company into its next chapter of growth and impact,” Shonhard says.