Contour, the digital trade finance network, announced today that Commerzbank has joined its global network of banks, corporates and ecosystem partners working together to digitally transform the industry.
By joining Contour’s network, Commerzbank’s customers in two crucial markets, Singapore and Germany, will be able to adopt a fully digital end-to-end Letter of Credit (LC) settlement process, which significantly improves cost and time-saving benefits.
At a time when there are major disruptions in global trade, digital developments are imperative to manage future shockwaves. Manual, paper-based processes inhibit trade growth by creating unnecessary complexity, cost and delays. The traditional processing for presenting documents for an LC can take up to two weeks, whereas using Contour reduces it to under 24 hours.
Contour leverages the power of distributed ledger technology (DLT) to drive the transformation of trade finance. Using R3’s Corda blockchain platform, Contour’s goal is to build a new global standard for trade finance by simplifying and streamlining the trade ecosystem, where everyone can collaborate on a common network.
Contour’s decentralised network ensures the improvement in speed and efficiency does not compromise security for banks and other participants. This balance is achieved allowing all users to collaborate and share information without one party – including Contour – owning the entire network or controlling the data. Each group on the network is able to keep their own data secure, while still being able to allow the seamless transition of information to present an LC.
Carl Wegner, CEO at Contour said: “We are excited to welcome a key European trade finance bank like Commerzbank to our growing network. As more global banks align with our vision to digitally transform international trade, it brings us a step closer to building the trade finance network of tomorrow. We look forward to working closely with Commerzbank to enable their corporates to simplify complex processes seamlessly and securely.”
