William Neff is a trade finance expert with over 25 years of experience at local, regional and global levels but has also had experience in corporate actions/M&As, the insurance sector (M&A) and co-founding and building two start-ups. William’s trade finance expertise includes trade digitisation and blockchain/DLT experience, including the issuance of the world’s first blockchain letter of credit.

William was previously a senior vice-president in HSBC’s regional Asia trade finance product management team in Singapore, covering all trade products across all client segments including financial institutions, commodity traders and corporates. William was the bank’s business lead for the Networked Trade Platform (NTP), Singapore lead for the Global Trade & Connectivity Platform (GTCN) and technology and operations workstream representative for the Trade Finance Registry, the Singapore government’s local and global trade digitisation initiatives.

Before that, he was the global head of SME trade products at Standard Chartered Bank, based in Singapore, following his role as head of trade products in Hong Kong. William also held senior local and regional roles at Barclays Bank in Hong Kong, London and South Africa.

William began his career in the 90s processing trade transactions in the International Trade Centre operations department of Standard Bank in South Africa.