Traydstream’s Co-Founder and Chief Operating Officer (COO), Uzair Bawany, said of the hire, “In Sameer we have one of the leading figures in global Trade Finance; his appointment is invaluable to us in charting a course for the exciting future for our business”. Sehgal will lead Traydstream through a crucial period for the company, with its first programmes beginning with banks over the third and fourth financial quarters of 2017.

The firm’s other Co-Founder and Global Sales Head, Achille D’Antoni also commented, “Sameer is a true industry expert. Uzair and I are delighted that he has joined us and he genuinely shares in our vision to re-shape Trade Finance. We are very excited with the next phase in our business as we move to pilot phase with leading banks and I cannot think of a better person to have at our helm”.

Sehgal has a premier banking background, having worked in a number of senior roles internationally. Prior to joining Traydstream he headed Citi Bank’s Trade business in EMEA (Europe, Middle-East and Africa) from 2009-2017 making it the largest trade bank in EMEA,with coverage over Global Distribution and Commodities Finance as well. Sehgal is recognised as a business builder, who brought in a slew of new capabilities to Citi EMEA, including expansion into Supply Chain Finance, Export and Agency Finance, Shipping, Commodities Finance and lately Sales Financing. He comes with vast experience across geographies in Asia and in EMEA. Earlier in his career Sehgal also held senior roles at Bank of America.

Sameer Sehgal has commented on the appointment, “I am delighted to be joining the Traydstream team; Digitisation and Automation in Trade is long overdue and Traydstream’s solution is refreshingly creative. The technical tools at hand today promise to redefine International Trade and Commerce. It’s a fascinating time to be in the industry and working on these game-changing innovations.”

Despite a drastic rise in Trade Finance’s importance to the global economy, with the World Trade Organization (WTO) now estimating that “some 80-90 per cent of world trade relies on trade finance”, the sector has not received the same technological attention as other sectors in finance.[1] Traydstream’s digital solution is comprised of three key modules: an OCR (Optical Character Recognition) engine, which uses Artificial Intelligence (A.I.) to digitise trade documents and smartly extract the relevant information; a tiered Rule-Checking function and a multi-faceted Compliance engine that utilises machine learning algorithms to verify and scrutinise for compliance with international trading rules and regulations. Geared for integration with Blockchain and robotics, Traydstream intends to deliver smarter and safer processing on an unprecedented, industrial scale.