13/10/2022
Efforts to digitise trade have been going on for more than 10 years, with innovations such as BPO, and even early platforms such as Bolero. But they have gained little traction – as there is a vast number of participants in the trade ecosystem that lack the scale or sophistication to use these platforms, they fail to build the scale required for such network-based products. Recently, the ongoing shift to open account trade, coupled with increased appetite for digitisation and bank / investor ‘hype’ from technologies such as blockchain, has driven a new generation of innovation, with multiple digital ecosystems appearing over recent years. These ecosystems are often the products of consortia of cross- industry partners or sponsors collaborating to establish digital platforms that connect entities within the broader trade finance network and facilitate the flow of data between them. They typically aim to provide:
1. Harmonisation – the ability for most parties involved in a transaction to interact via a single platform
2. Efficiency – the automation and simplification of processes, including real-time data exchange, reducing costs for participants
3. Transparency – the secure sharing of data directly between the relevant parties
4. Security – the ability to authenticate parties and record transactions to reduce the chance of against fraud, with or without DLT
Many transactions using such technology have been announced recently. But they have typically been no more than test transactions, involving clients such as Cargill, Rio Tinto, wool exporter Fox & Lillie, and China’s state-owned Sinochem Energy Technology. They do not represent a systemic move to the new platforms for business-as-usual. Nor is there any “single winner”. Many platforms now compete, variously focused on specific regions, on kinds of goods, or on legal arrangements (such as documentary vs. open account trade).
Source - Trade Finance Global
