Pouya Jafari has joined the SMBC global trade finance department’s (GTFD) trade innovation team in London as vice-president.

The bank’s trade innovation team was formally established in July this year and is headed by Shinichiro Yamazaki, who is also regional head of GTFD in Asia Pacific, based in Singapore.

A spokesperson for the bank tells GTR that new-joiner Jafari will work closely with all of GTFD’s business lines and regions to “further develop and accelerate SMBC’s digitalisation of trade finance”. He reports to Masayuki Miyashita, head of trade innovation Emea within GTFD.

“SMBC is actively engaged in promoting trade digitalisation solutions for its clients as a founder member of Marco Polo and in partnership with leading technology providers including Komgo, Contour and others,” the spokesperson adds.

Before moving to SMBC, Jafari had worked at Channel Capital Advisors, focusing on trade and commodity finance, and before that at Wells Fargo as a credit analyst and AIG as an analyst, all based in London.

Jafari maintains his position as deputy chairman of the International Trade and Forfaiting Association (ITFA) emerging leaders initiative. He is also the founder of tradeXplain, an educational trade finance website.