Sean Edwards is an English lawyer, formerly with Clifford Chance, and is now Head of Legal at SMBC Bank International plc, part of the Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group.  

He has a commercial role as Special Adviser to the Trade Finance Department of the bank and is a member of the bank’s Trade Innovation Unit.  

Sean is Chairman of the International Trade & Forfaiting Association (ITFA).

He is one of the principal draftsmen of the Uniform Rules for Forfaiting (URF), a joint initiative of ITFA and ICC. The URF is the only set of international rules on any form of receivables finance to be recognised by UNCITRAL.

Sean was also a member of the drafting group for the Standard Definitions for Techniques of Supply Chain Finance published by ITFA, ICC, FCI, BAFT and the EBA.

He sits on the Executive Committee of the ICC Banking Commission and leads a work-stream on the ICC Working Group on Digitalisation in Trade Finance.

Sean is a member of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) Trade Finance Expert Group.

Sean has written articles on trade finance, particularly on different forms of receivables finance, for all the major trade finance magazines and is on the editorial board of Global Trade Review (GTR). He is a frequent presenter at trade finance conferences dealing with a range of subjects.