Effective and Innovative Uses for Credit Insurance

Walter Baker brings more than 30 years of experience in international trade finance to his current position as vice president and head of global trade solutions delivery for Fifth Third Bank. Fifth Third is one of the 20 largest banks in the US and provides a full range of risk mitigation and financing products for domestic and international trade. His professional experience includes earlier stints with Atradius Trade Credit Insurance, ABN AMRO Bank, Bank of America, Wachovia Bank, and The First National Bank of Chicago.

Mr. Baker is a recognized expert in trade finance and makes frequent presentations for national associations of exporters, importers, bankers, and lawyers. He designed the online training/certification programs used by the Association of International Credit and Trade Finance Professionals (ICTF) and by the Association of Trade and Forfaiting in the Americas (ATFA) and the trade finance sections of the certification program used by the Finance, Credit and International Business Group (FCIB) of the National Association of Credit Management (NACM). Mr. Baker has authored numerous magazine articles, and the books: Users’ Handbook to Documentary Credits under UCP600, Documentary Payments & Short-Term Trade Finance, and The Regulatory Environment of Letters of Credit and Trade Finance. He serves as a member-at-large of the National Letter of Credit Committee of the Bankers’ Association for Finance and Trade/International Financial Services Association and is actively involved in establishing national and worldwide standard practices for LCs, such as the current version of the Uniform Customs and Practice for Documentary Credits (referred to as UCP600), the official ICC guide for examining letter of credit documents, called the International Standard Banking Practices for the Examination of Documents under Documentary Credits (ISBP), the eUCP supplement to the UCP dealing with electronic documents, the International Standby Practices (ISP98), and Article 5 of the Uniform Commercial Code.

Mr. Baker also serves on the board of directors of the Association of International Credit and Trade Finance Professionals (ICTF), a multinational association of export credit managers, on the advisory council of the Institute for International Banking Law and Practice, and on the council of International Standby Practices. He earned his undergraduate degree at Yale University and his MBA at Northwestern.