About

In charge of all the legal, compliance and risk matters at Coface, one of the largest credit insurance companies in Chile, Ignacio Parra Benavente is a specialised attorney in financial markets that are highly regulated, as well as complex from a regulatory standing point. Since joining the company in 2016, Parra has participated in the legal coordination for the expansion of Coface into other markets in Latin America, and also systemised and ordered the company’s contract review process. ‘This has improved our controls over external providers and has allowed us to get better contractual conditions’, he says. In regard to his other roles at the insurer, Parra has implemented a full compliance program that changed the culture and processes of Coface to comply with local and European standards. He also relishes handling risk management matters, saying, ‘the risk management view has allowed me to get a broader perception of the business. This relation between legal and risk management has become a good synergy that has moulded my career positively’. Prior to joining Coface, Parra worked at BancoEstado, a state-owned bank and one of the largest banks in Chile. As an attorney of the asset management branch there, he was in charge of the implementation of different internal policies related to legal and compliance matters, whilst also giving advice to commercial teams on a broad variety of topics related to financial market regulations. Before this, he studied a Masters degree in business, competition and regulatory law given by the Free University of Berlin between 2014 and 2015. For two years prior to his Masters Parra worked in the legal and compliance department of Zurich Santander Seguros, a local joint venture between Zurich Group and Santander Group for the commercialisation of insurance products. He highlights how important this period was for his career: ‘While I was in Zurich-Santander I had to implement the new insurance law that totally changed the insurance regulation. This change impacted all the business lines and required from me a deep involvement with all the areas of the company, especially with the commercial teams. The work was finished on time and moulded my career by giving me a more commercially oriented view’.