René Pastor
President of Global Commercial, Tradewind Finance
As President, Global Commercial, of Tradewind Finance, Mr. Pastor oversees the firm’s global sales and marketing efforts. Working with Tradewind’s offices around the world to structure supply chain finance and export factoring programs for small and middle market companies, Mr. Pastor brings expert insights into international trade and finance. Before joining Tradewind in 2007, Mr. Pastor worked for Deutsche Forfait AG in Cologne. He is a graduate of Rheinische Fachhochschule Köln e.V. University, where he studied Financial Law.
How do you see do you see your business evolving over the past 12 months and have there been any particular shifts due to the Covid19 Pandemic?
One of Tradewind Finance’s core traits is flexibility, and the past year has been one in which we’ve adapted our funding and embraced new protocols to solve the unique challenges brought on by Covid-19. We saw our clients face halts in orders as well as a stop in payments from their customers, so we made our cash flow solutions more accessible than ever. We continued to be a reliable financial partner for our clients through supply chain disruptions, and welcomed new business too, while implementing additional support like financing payment terms up to 180 days.
Being specialized in Receivable Finance how do you see the digitization of trade finance shaping up to the advantage of your business?
Tradewind’s role as a financial services provider will be supported by further digitization in the field of trade finance. Our business priority is to accelerate cash flow for our clients while minimizing trade credit risk, and digital advances can help elevate this effort by creating a more secure and efficient trading climate in general, with faster processes and enhanced transparency. As a global company, Tradewind is committed to keep expanding our international footprint and stay at the forefront of technology in doing so. Digital capabilities that assist with things like time zone, language, and currency differences, as well as a reduction in necessary paper exchange, will be pivotal in fulfilling this mission.
What are the reasons that pushed you to onboard Fineon Exchange platform?
Tradewind is always looking for partnerships that have an international footprint. Partnering with Fineon was a great chance to capitalize on international opportunities without wasting much time in the screening process given the many pre-filter settings.
How would you rate your experience following the few matches you have already made on the Fineon Exchange Platform?
Triple A. All matches we worked on converted into real leads.
How important is it for you to partner with Fineon Exchange as an origination of quality deals?
Very important. We are seeing an increasing amount of direct funding requests from various countries. Needless to say, filtering them is time- and labor-intensive.
Having a strong platform as an origination partner, combined with Tradewind’s capabilities as an international trade finance solutions provider, is helping to target jointly better quality clients, and eliminating funding headaches in doing so.
