Crown Agents Bank welcomes David Smithson back to the fold as Regional Banker for East and Southern Africa

Crown Agents Bank has re-appointed David Smithson to the Emerging and Frontier Markets team in a welcome return to the bank after a 14-month hiatus. David is a seasoned FI relationship banker, treasury professional, and trade financier who has worked closely with central banks and commercial banks throughout his 27-year career, the majority of which has been spent with Crown Agents Bank.

After 14 months working at British Arab Commercial Bank, David returns to our Emerging & Frontier Markets sales team as Regional Banker for East and Southern Africa. He has a critical understanding and experience of these markets and has forged strong relationships with our financial institution partners over many years. David will have an integral role in deepening our portfolio of financial institutional clients and his extensive experience of Crown Agents Bank’s treasury, international payments, and trade finance solutions makes him well-positioned to develop our extensive network further.

Duarte Pedreira, Head of Emerging and Frontier Markets stated that “having David return to CAB and the Emerging and Frontier Markets team is a clear testimony of the bank’s commitment to its clients. David covered central banks and commercial banks for CAB for 25 years and the depth and quality of those relationships cannot be understated in any way. David returns at a time when the bank is actively up-scaling its activities as one of the main global providers of Emerging Markets FX trading and payments through an ambitious tech-driven strategy, and his client knowledge will help us accelerate the pace at which we capture flows from and to East and Southern Africa”.

David adds, “it’s very exciting to be back at Crown Agents Bank and taking up the mantle of which my expertise is so strongly suited in developing relationships with commercial and central banks in East and Southern Africa. Most importantly, I look forward to supporting our clients and the bank as we continue to upscale amidst this rapid growth transformation.”

About Crown Agents Bank:

Crown Agents Bank is authorised by the Prudential Regulation Authority (PRA) and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) and PRA.

We are a financial service partner of choice for many governments, development organisations, and regulated financial services businesses. We act as a preferred payment and FX intermediary facilitating the delivery of money into some of the fastest growing economies in the world. With our help, customers overcome challenges which can include illiquid FX markets or the complex process of ‘last-mile’ delivery across bank and emerging forms of non-bank payment rails.