A survey of over 200 trade professionals conducted by the Swedish tech company, Enigio, found that 81% of respondents still rely on ordinary PDFs and 54% on courier paper originals. Less than 1% of the respondents are satisfied with the current paper process and do not experience any issues. The stubborn tendency to turn to paper as the first option for trade documentation is still paradoxically behind other facets of life, such as in communication or personal payments, where paper has been largely phased out, replaced by digital alternatives.

An easier digital option would benefit corporates of all sizes. But for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), instant transfer of trade documents would directly address the pain points created by document delays: time, bills, stress, and more.

Announced on Monday, 22 September, Enigio has launched a new self-serve online channel, allowing users and their trade networks to create and manage any type of electronic trade document. The channel is open, so the recipient doesn’t need to register or join any platform to receive and manage the documents – be these bills of lading, certificates of origin, guarantees, promissory notes, or any type of trade document. And these documents will hold the same legal standing as their paper counterparts.

The effects of this transition on SMEs and middle market enterprises (MMEs) is set to be transformative, and will likely shape the next few decades in trade: hopefully, to the extent that we look back on 2025 as an age in antiquity. 

To tell us more about these developments, Trade Finance Global (TFG) spoke to Patrik Zekkar, CEO of Enigio, on how he sees small businesses being better incorporated into trade networks as a result of document digitalisation.

Mahika Ravi Shankar (MRS): What compelled Enigio to create this channel? Where did you find the gap in the market? 

Patrik Zekkar (PZ): Good question, and this goes in line with what we’ve been discussing in industry forums for quite a while. If we don’t get SMEs and MMEs on the train, we will not have digitalisation for trade. They constitute the main bulk of trade. It’s not only the Cargills or the big multinationals like ThyssenKrupp or Siemens that will make this transition happen. In every ledger, there are 20,000 to 30,000 SMEs providing part shipments to these multinational corporations (MNCs).

They are very important to get on board in order for this to get broader and wider adoption. What do we need there? We need simplicity, we need accessibility, we need affordability. They should not have technical barriers. They may not have high-value transactions. They may not even be transaction-intensive. So let’s make something simple, easy, and accessible for them. That’s what we built in order to cater for that segment.

MRS: I also wanted to ask a bit about how you know what those segments need. The press release mentions an Enigio survey with over 200 SMEs participating. I was wondering: in that survey, did you have a breakdown between SMEs, mid-size corporates, and large corporates? How did you find the voice of SMEs in this process?

PZ: Yeah, that was quite good. We found 240 SME corporates involved in trade after doing quite an extensive exclusion – no financial institutions, no alternative lenders. You needed to have a revenue base below a certain number and a limited number of employees. So we put all these criteria in place and carved out the universe we really wanted to look at.

The response rate was higher than expected, which actually shows they have a view on it. The survey itself is an interesting article, I would say. We followed that up with deep interviews with some of them. We also went for a geographical spread, so we could get a feeling for whether there were differences in challenges.

MRS: That leads me neatly on to my next question. SMEs obviously look very different in parts of Europe versus emerging markets. How did you account for these differences, particularly in terms of access to digital infrastructure?

PZ: They have pretty similar challenges. They cannot take on heavy IT integration. Speed is of the essence. They have limited human resources to put into this, on top of everything else they have to do for each headcount. These are universal challenges.

Some markets have more access to liquidity, others less. In those cases, you need more robust instruments to mitigate risk and be bankable. For example, in Africa, you may need to present a bill of exchange or promissory note to make your receivable liquid. If no banks may want to handle and process low-value negotiable instrument transactions, because the processing cost is too high, then SMEs don’t get liquidity in these markets.

Whereas, in Europe, some banks are happy to buy an invoice because the legal framework is strong enough to protect such a purchased receivable. So there are certain differences, but you’re right – it’s mostly common challenges.

 MRS: We often hear about why these places are different and the dangers of a one-size-fits-all approach, but it’s really interesting to focus on what characteristics unite SMEs. What have the results of the new channel been so far? 

PZ: We had a soft launch with some customers close to us, who tested it and had been running it for a while.

Overall, we had positive results and a couple of unexpected surprises. One I can mention is their appreciation for easy access to an integrated electronic signature ceremony. We have a qualified signature included for free. For these companies, obtaining something similar to, for example, DocuSign on their own can be quite cumbersome and expensive. They appreciated it a lot, all parts packaged.

It’s been used in ways we didn’t anticipate, like creating agreements with parties much more efficiently. For example, agreement handling between Sweden and Peru, and we have one case where they use it as a standard tool for all documents.

I looked at the traffic 20 minutes after we put this up, and there was a significant increase in traffic activity. Asia, Africa, Europe – while South and North America were still asleep.

MRS: Let me end by asking: What do you see for this platform in the next 25 years? Imagine SMEs and mid-markets using it consistently – what would it look like?

PZ: It will be a standard. Something we’ll look back on and say, “Why did this take so long?” It will be pretty obvious. Why did we keep going with paper when email already existed? I think people will be confused with us afterwards, right or wrong. History will make it obvious.

MRS: Good to be on the right side of history for this one. 

PZ: Exactly – “Why didn’t we do this earlier? This should’ve been done a long time ago.” I mean, it took millions of people less than a year to move from physical credit cards to digital credit cards in mobile phones, with Apple Pay and similar. People lost approximately 1g of weight in their pockets!

While the benefit here is much, much larger, it’s different: but people strive for improvements by nature, and the faster the better.