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Done Switzerland Expands Trade Finance Operations to Türkiye, Targeting Credit-Starved SMEs

By Advos•
Done Switzerland has opened operations in Türkiye to provide supply chain financing to SME importers facing a persistent credit gap, naming Filiz Ünal as CEO.
Done Switzerland Expands Trade Finance Operations to Türkiye, Targeting Credit-Starved SMEs

Done, a Swiss group of companies providing logistics, supply chain management and financing solutions since 2011, has opened operations in Türkiye and named Filiz Ünal as CEO of Done Türkiye. The move makes Türkiye the group's fourth market alongside Switzerland, Poland and Ukraine, extending a footprint that already serves more than 400 SME distributors across Eastern Europe and the Black Sea region.

The expansion targets a market where banks are not fully reaching small and medium-sized importers. Türkiye imported about $365.4 billion of goods in 2025. Over 2023–2025, 41.8% of Turkish SMEs reported being partially or fully credit-constrained, compared with between 9.5% and 25.2% in the Western Balkan economies covered by the OECD's SME Policy Index: Western Balkans and Türkiye 2026. The report also notes that Türkiye stands out among the economies it covers for SMEs' growing use of capital markets, amid robust growth in private equity and venture capital.

The credit gap is not unique to Türkiye. Globally, the Asian Development Bank estimates the trade finance gap at $2.5 trillion in 2025, unchanged from 2023 and equivalent to about 10% of global trade, with 80% of banks surveyed expecting demand to keep rising as companies diversify supply chains.

"Despite having one of the region's most developed non-bank financial infrastructures, import-driven SME demand has outgrown what collateral-based lending can absorb. This is the setting Done was built for," said Dmitrii Rivkin, founder of Done. He added that the company works directly with the underlying trade transaction — buying goods from factories on behalf of SME importers — which gives lending partners visibility and risk control over deals that typically fall outside conventional lending criteria.

Filiz Ünal will lead Done Türkiye's operations. She has more than 30 years of experience in Türkiye's factoring and financial services sector, including serving as Deputy Secretary General of the Association of Financial Institutions, as Secretary General of the Turkish Factoring Association, and as Executive Vice President at Garanti Factoring. At Done Türkiye, she developed the market-entry strategy and operating model and is responsible for partner relations and business development.

Rather than lending against inventory, Done Switzerland buys goods directly from manufacturers in Europe and Asia on agreed-upon payment terms, stores them in licensed and insured partner-operated warehouses, and releases them to the client only after payment is received. Clients can take a full shipment and pay on arrival, or draw down inventory gradually — an approach Rivkin said reflects the reality that "demand is rarely linear, and inventory does not always move at a predictable pace."

Before placing an order, the company screens each supplier's legal standing, ownership and reputation through due-diligence platforms including AsiaVerify and World-Check from the London Stock Exchange Group, and keeps a time-stamped record of every item in storage that can serve as an independent, auditable trail should a dispute with a supplier reach a court.

With 15 years of operating experience in logistics, Done, according to company data, completed more than 4,000 transactions in 2025 with 1,808 supplier factories for 417 clients, with an average deal size of $50,000, and posted $315 million in annual turnover. The company says it has recorded no non-payments since it began operating. Done employed more than 250 people across its offices in 2025. Türkiye is the latest addition to a group that already operates in Switzerland, Poland, and Ukraine; the company says it is scoping three further market entries over the next year as it builds out its presence across Eastern Europe and the Black Sea region.

Advos

Advos

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