Blockchain

“I joined SWIFT as part of the 5 man global sales team in 1985, so SIBOS in Brighton was my first … and of course it was memorable…I stayed for 20 years, attended 23 SIBOS events across the world- pioneering days … no mobile phones, paper based processes, no internet …’

The Universal Trade Network (UTN), a project initially aimed to allow for interoperability between many of the blockchain and non-blockchain consortia and networks has been renamed and adopted by the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC).

TFG spoke to Emmanuelle Ganne, Senior Analyst and Blockchain Lead at the World Trade Organization on the state of digitisation within trade and trade finance. With the rise of numerous DLT and non-DLT consortia, what role should multilateral bodies play, and how can we create paperless trade together? The interview was held at ExCred Commodities in London.

New York – 19 September, 2019 – Bank of America announces that it is joining the Marco Polo Network, the largest and fastest growing trade finance networks leveraging Corda distributed ledger technology to provide transformative solutions to global trade participants.

To advance trade finance’s digital transformation, financial institutions and technology providers alike are ramping up efforts to cooperate through a number of consortiums. But, to ensure these various initiatives do not create a cluster of “digital islands”, a more joined-up approach is required.

Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) has been around for several years and has its roots in the world of cryptocurrencies, often referred to as Blockchain. Having brought some very interesting opportunities to the Banking market, attention was sparked in other industries such as Insurance, Healthcare, Shipping, Supply Chains, Manufacturing and Trade Finance.

Over the past 2-3 decades there have been many attempts to digitise parts of the trade and trade finance process, but it’s the complexity of trade that remains the challenge. Most successful attempts at digitisation have had to bite off a small piece of the problem and this has led to silos or what I call a ‘digital island’ phenomena.

This short note explores the potential second order effect of Blockchain and other new technologies on the Trade Finance ecosystem.

Despite today’s climate of rising trade tariffs and falling trade volumes, UniCredit’s Global Head of Global Transaction Banking, Luca Corsini, claims we have reason to remain optimistic for trade finance revenues in the coming months, pointing to the rising need for security in trade transactions, the rise of digital platforms to simplify and expand service provision, and continued infrastructure development stemming from Asia

The mobile phone revolution was ignited by Apple, but democratized by Google and enabled by an implementation of an open-source operating system, now called Android.

The Asian Development Bank (ADB) has released the results of the 2019 rendition of their annual Trade Finance Gaps, Growth, and Jobs Survey. ADB’s vast network of respondents includes 112 banks from 47 countries, 53 export credit agencies from 17 countries, 39 forfaiters from 20 countries, and 336 other firms from 68 different countries around the globe.

All global industries require standards. Remember what a huge step forward it was when the carrier industry agreed on the design for a shipping container. The same is true for electronic trade documents and their supporting systems.

TFG heard from Accenture’s Cecile Andre Leruste, on the major digitisation initiatives within the commodiy finance space. Commodity finance is in a phase of major transition, driven by multiple megatrends

So you’ve built yourself a blockchain, now what are you supposed to do with it?

The next generation of technology-led financial services innovators are disrupting the industry in a big way, and TFG’s Deepesh Patel caught up with Natalie Ceeney CBE, Chair of Innovate Finance, at WCBI.