How technology can enhance the financial support for corporates and reduce the impact of outdated processes.
Every growing global business needs finance. In 2017 alone, USD 15.5 trillion of merchandise exports were transported around the world across sea, air, rail and road, and as much as 80% of this global trade required financing.
Traditional trade finance technology required corporates to log into multiple portals, and juggle relationships and documentation for each shipment. In addition, businesses must navigate the growing threat of cyber-attacks, regulatory burdens, increasingly sophisticated fraudsters and ever-changing sanctions lists. Despite this complexity, cumbersome and time-consuming paper-based processes are still commonplace.
Corporates invariably rely on a combination of paper, fax, email and multiple digital solutions, creating complicated processes with any number of opportunities for errors to be introduced. Blockchain can reduce inefficiencies in trade and supply chains enabling faster verification and reconciliation of records, and the mutualisation of costs to automate trade finance workflows through smart contracts.
The emergence of blockchain technology is a watershed moment for trade finance, offering an innovative solution uniquely equipped to tackle the nuances and complexities of the industry.
