ICTF's International Credit Professionals Symposium

The Intercontinental Hotel and the city centre of Düsseldorf offered a great ambiance to the group of approximately 50 attendees. The majority of the attendees were insurers, brokers, risk consultancy agencies and software suppliers. Furthermore, European credit managers were also present.

After the welcome reception on Wednesday November 23rd, the symposium started on Thursday with the keynote speaker Freddie van den Spiegel, Chief Economist at BNP Paribas/Fortis. He uncovered problems and disasters of today’s world economy in just one hour. He emphasized that after the crunch, the world economy is still not there yet and not even by a long shot. “Forget everything you learned from the past 20 years economy, this is nothing like it. The current situation is comparable with the 30’s, and that period ended with a war.” This time, the answer to the crisis might not be war, but there will be major political changes on a global scale.

After the inspiring opening session, a lot of interesting sessions followed: from various credit professionals about the EU hunt for cash credit strategies and corporate ratings & valuation. The session on Trading in Eastern Europe also delivered useful insights. The panellists at this session shared their view on doing international business in Eastern Europe. Bierens Debt Recovery Lawyers shared information about Poland and Robert Schulze, member of Euro Collect Lawyers, had an entertaining presentation about doing business in Russia.

Next to the sessions there were lots of opportunities to network with others. OnGuard was also present at the networking Coffee Break/EXPO. Overall, it was a good networking event with, unfortunately, a small group of attendees. Nevertheless, the programme consisted of several interesting sessions and valuable speakers.