Tradetech

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.

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.

Digital disruptors have forever changed the financial services industry by offering customers friction-free, easy-to-use, mobile-accessible environments and a previously unimaginable range of goods and services. And institutions are taking action.

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.

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.

Trade Finance Global (TFG), announces that it joins Innovate Finance, the leading UK industry body and independent membership association for FinTech.

It has finally started to happen in Trade Finance business domain when it comes to application of emerging technologies helping to create new ways of approaching the old business processes. The old way of working has created many challenges for global trade in addition to political protectionism now also generating stress to exchange goods and services internationally. The additional challenges may be listed as lack of trust and true global interoperability as well as local and regional political agendas and regulations.

Today, Trade Finance Global were at the ITFA 46th Annual International Trade and Forfaiting Conference, held in Budapest, observing the ITFA Young Trade Financier of the Year Award.

Global law practice Eversheds Sutherland appointed as legal counsel for blockchain trade platform eTradeConnect to help the consortia tackle legal challenges related to the use of blockchain in trade finance.

Islamic finance is a specialist area that presents exciting growth opportunities for the UK. Sharia (Islamic law) compliant banking assets make up 6% of the world’s banking assets, but globally, approximately one in four people are Muslim. The scope for growth is obvious.

LBBW and Commerzbank have once again executed a trade transaction between Voith and KSB SE, via the Marco Polo trade finance network, built on R3’s distributed ledger technology (DLT) platform, Corda.

Simplifying and standardising trade finance faces a myriad of challenges but is necessary to enable open, secure trade finance. I caught up with Harri Rantanen at SEB to find out more about the objectives and mission behind Standardised Trust.

In this interview series, we heard from 3 Supply Chain Finance experts and learned about the developments in the sector and the best of practices SCF implementation. TFG’s Persiana Ignatova spoke to Igor Zacks, Erick Riddle and Andrew Tananbaum, who are members of World of Open Account (WOA).