Union de banques arabes et françaises - U.B.A.F.

Union de banques arabes et françaises - U.B.A.F. is a French credit institution headquartered in Paris that focuses on trade finance and cross‑border banking between Europe and the Middle East and North Africa. Established in 1970, it provides corporate and institutional clients with documentary credits and confirmations, standby letters of credit, documentary collections, bank guarantees, forfaiting and discounting, pre‑ and post‑shipment finance, receivables purchase and supply chain finance, as well as correspondent banking, international payments, cash management and foreign exchange hedging. The bank does not operate as a retail lender and positions its services toward exporters, importers, commodity traders and financial institutions involved in MENA trade corridors. U.B.A.F. is supervised under the French and EU regulatory framework and applies standard AML/CFT, sanctions screening and know‑your‑customer procedures; onboarding and transaction processing are documentation‑driven, and activities involving higher‑risk jurisdictions are subject to enhanced due diligence or may be declined. Pricing is generally determined case by case based on country and counterparty risk, tenor, structure and collateral, with instrument and confirmation fees common in documentary business. Delivery relies on SWIFT and established trade finance channels, with a limited physical footprint and extensive use of correspondent networks in target markets. Risk exposure is largely linked to emerging‑market sovereign, bank and commodity‑related counterparties through confirmed letters of credit and structured trade assets, with liquidity, capital and Pillar 3 disclosures available in annual and regulatory reports. The bank publishes financial statements in line with French and European requirements and is oriented to companies seeking focused support for MENA‑related trade flows rather than general transactional banking in France.