🌟 Editor's note

Editor’s Note | Week of 8 December 2025

By Carter Hoffman

It felt like -20°C in Toronto this week, which means our Canadian team has officially hunkered down for the winter. Across the pond, London was far more mild, which meant the rest of the team could venture out to spend some time at the Global Banking Summit, an annual gathering for the banking crowd organised by FT Live and The Banker.

On the reporting side, we covered OSFI’s new consultation for Canada’s 2027 capital rules, and the Bank of England lowered its system-wide benchmark to 13%. The WTO Barometer also edged down, signalling softer trade growth ahead. The Property (Digital Assets etc) Act 2025 received Royal Assent, meaning that digital assets can attract personal property rights in England and Wales and Northern Ireland, even though they do not fit into traditional legal categories. IKEA also announced that it is joining the DCSA partnership programme.

Our Slow Read this week is a conversation with Thibaut Jean of Crédit Agricole CIB about the future of ECA and multilateral finance, from energy transition priorities to the growing role of secondary markets. We also released two new videos with the EBRD on how banks are supporting SMEs and building resilience in more challenging markets.

And in case you missed it, applications for the TTP Awards are now open. If you’ve been thinking about putting a name forward, consider this your nudge.

Until next time — stay warm.

— The TTP Editorial Team

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Slow Read

In conversation with Thibaut Jean, Crédit Agricole CIB’s new Global Head of ECA and Multilateral Financing Solutions

Crédit Agricole CIB has appointed Thibaut Jean to lead its Export Credit Agencies and Multilateral Financing Solutions franchise, a business that now touches everything from energy transition projects to complex cross-border funding structures.

Thibaut has spent nearly two decades across different roles within the bank, which gives him a clearer view than most of where the next set of challenges and opportunities are likely to appear.

In this exclusive interview, Trade Treasury Payments (TTP) Trade Editor Carter Hoffman spoke with the new appointee about those challenges and opportunities, and what he sees as the defining priorities for the team.

A career built across trade, structuring, and client coverage

Carter Hoffman (CH): You’ve worked across trade finance, structuring, asset distribution, and corporate coverage. How have these perspectives influenced the way you think about building partnerships between banks, ECAs, and multilaterals?

Thibaut Jean (TJ): This journey within Crédit Agricole CIB has given me a broad understanding of what our clients are expecting from us in the development of their business and the importance of delivering tailor-made solutions fitting with their needs. In the Export Finance market, we know that serving our clients implies a perfect alignment between all stakeholders (banks, ECAs, multilaterals, but also private insurers, etc). Our very long presence in this market and deep knowledge of the whole ecosystem put us in the right position to support our clients in their strategic projects.

CH: You’re taking over a team that is already recognised as a market leader. What’s one dimension where you think Crédit Agricole CIB’s ECA and multilateral franchise can evolve further under your leadership?

TJ: Our franchise is constantly evolving because the market itself is moving and our clients’ requirements change over time. This is the beauty of our industry, as a few years back, the global landscape and the available solutions for our clients were very different. Therefore, the main challenge ahead of us is to show our agility and capacity to constantly adapt. For me, this is definitely the key condition for success.

Evolving mandates and global alignment

CH: Export credit agencies were once seen mainly as instruments of national industrial policy. Today, they’re increasingly part of the global climate and development finance architecture. How do you see their role evolving over the next decade?

TJ: I believe the traditional role of ECAs as a tool to support national industrial policy will remain. However, I agree that their mandate has widened a lot over the last few years in line with the strategic priorities of governments (energy transition, supply of critical raw materials, re-industrialisation, etc.) in a more fragmented global context. This has been particularly true after the COVID-19 crisis and the beginning of the war in Ukraine, given the disruptions these crises have created on a global scale.

In this context, ECAs have launched new initiatives with the development of the so-called “untied” solutions, and more recently with the new concept of “shopping lines”. All these solutions, with their own features, go in the same direction: sovereignty and protection of the national interest.

When we talk about ECAs’ role in the current context, I have to mention the defence sector. The geopolitical context calls for increasing defence spending, and ECAs are playing a critical role in these G-to-G negotiations. Volumes will continue to grow, and some ECAs, which were reluctant before, are now opening up to support the investments in this sector.

At Crédit Agricole CIB, we will continue to be present in all these segments of activity and will bring our expertise and guidance to clients.

CH: At a time when global coordination feels more fragmented, multilaterals and DFIs are being asked to do more with constrained balance sheets. How can private banks like Crédit Agricole CIB support that mission without diluting commercial discipline?

TJ: We have forged solid partnerships with DFIs and multilateral institutions at a global scale, and renamed our department from “Export Finance” to “ECA and Multilateral Financing Solutions” to reflect the fact that DFIs and multilaterals are a core focus of our development strategy. Our experience shows that combining the guarantees brought by multilaterals programs with our expertise, knowledge of the local specificities, and balance sheet capacity brings significant value to our clients. Cooperation between multilaterals and commercial banks is a “win-win” situation, and we will work on reinforcing it further.

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Did You Know? 

With the UK’s new Property (Digital Assets etc) Act 2025, digital assets such as crypto tokens can now enjoy full personal property rights in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, even though they do not fit traditional legal categories like “things in possession” or “things in action”. This shift is expected to make it easier to take security, structure collateral, and resolve insolvencies involving digital assets, bringing them closer to the mainstream of secured finance.

Till next time,

Trade Treasury Payments (TTP)