Trade Finance Specialist - Houston, United States - Unipec America , Inc

Description

Job Type

Full-time

Description

The Trade Finance Specialist will ensure all financing duties are performed promptly, compliant, and effectively. Focus areas will be to improve cash flow, mitigate payments, currency & performance exposure, and maintain compliance with the assistance from our financial partners. A solid understanding of international trade, working with counterparties, and global commodity & currency market dynamics is essential to this role. As a member of the Finance team partnering with internal departments like Risk, Legal, Trading and Operations will determine the success and effectiveness of this role.

Responsibilities:

• The main point of contact for all trade finance responsibilities and issues including L/C, PU or LOC, AR discounting, etc.
• Establish a strong working relationship with traders, operations, risk, and legal teams. Proactive communication with all departments.
• Liaise with banks, and local and overseas counterparts, when necessary, to ensure timely receipt and issuance of financial security, receipt of payments, and delivery of barges/cargoes.
• Manage cash needs by using factoring or other types of debt financing.
• Review contract provisions to make sure contractual provisions align with trade finance instrument wording requirements.
• Maintain current bank relationships by regular communication/updates to banking partners to ensure a cohesive relationship, as well as understanding what areas need developing, improving, etc.
• Identify and develop new banking relationships that could be established to add to the company's banking portfolio.
• Perform credit analysis for international banks.
• Ability to work with stakeholders and manage documentary deficiencies.
• Contribute to trade finance policy and procedural reviews as appropriate, including proposals to:

o Management team for other systems deemed required for the trade finance role.

o Improve functionality of current in-house processes.

• Develop and implement new ideas/trade finance products to enhance the day-to-day operation of the trade finance function and improve the efficiency/effectiveness of the department and carry out their implementation.
• Understand specific country laws and ensure compliance.
• Prepare ad hoc strategic/financial reports as required.
• Monitor trade finance-related models in the ERP system.
• Internal trade finance-related audit, internal trade finance procedure risk control test.
• Perform other duties as assigned.

Requirements

• Bachelor's degree in Finance, Accounting, or related field.
• Master's degree is highly preferred.
• 5+ years' experience with Trade Finance in an energy commodity trading and/or banking environment.
• CDCS Certification is highly desired.
• Must have good technical and practical knowledge of UCP 600, ISP 98, and URR 525.
• Proficient in Microsoft Office Suite or similar software.
• High attention to detail.
• Bilingual in Mandarin and English, specifically the ability to read and write is preferred.
• Ability to work independently and a true self-starter.
• Experience working with a global team in multiple time zones.
• Extremely organized and able to work with large amounts of information.
• A strong bias for action, moving quickly and efficiently in a trading environment.

Please note we will not sponsor, obtain, and/or petition for temporary visa status (for example, E, F-1, H-1, H-2, L, B, J, or TN) for candidates for this position and/or personnel hired for this position.

We are not accepting unsolicited resumes from third-party recruitment agencies; therefore we will not pay a fee for resumes submitted.