Standard Chartered and DBS, with the support of 12 other banks, have kicked off a project that will use a blockchain network to register trade finance transactions.
The digital Trade Finance Registry (TFR) proof-of-concept used technology provided by dltledgers. The ambition is to create an industry utility that could serve as a secure central database for the banking industry to access records of trade transactions financed across banks in Singapore.
Banks are currently able to conduct such validations only within a single customer entity or across their individual banking network, with no view of what other banks have financed or undertaken payment obligation against.
The TFR mitigates against duplicate financing from different bank lenders for the same trade inventory, embedding trust between banks and traders.
DBS and Standard Chartered scoped and developed the prof-of-conept in the span of three months, with the support of 12 other banks - ABN Amro, ANZ, CIMB, Deutsche Bank, Icici, Lloyds, Maybank, Natixis, OCBC, Rabobank, SMBC and UOB.
DBS and Standard Chartered says they will work with the Association Banks of Singapore to implement the TFR within Singapore, before expanding it globally to cover major trade corridors at a later stage.