Major banks target $1.5tn coverage gap with trade finance platform

The FT reports that several of the world’s largest banks plan to build a digital platform, named the "Trade Information Network", that aims to open up an at present unaddressed $1.5bn part of the global market for trade finance.

The project will launch by the end of the year.

The banks include ANZ, Santander, BNP, Citi, Deutsche Bank, HSBC and Standard Chartered.

The project hopes to lower the risk of trade finance, particularly of providing trade finance to smaller companies who remain under-served by the large banks.

The platform will allow banks to verify purchase order and invoice information, and to reduce to risk of fraud and double financing.

Comments
Wot, no blockchain? The FT reports that the Trade Information Network will not use blockchain or distributed ledger technology, albeit it will be capable of interconnecting to other blockchain-based platforms.

I am surprised by this, as trade finance seemed one of the most promising use cases for DLT, and several other trade finance projects have already chosen to go with DLT – the FT mentions the Hong Kong Monetary Authority-backed trade finance platform which uses blockchain.

Another reason it is surprising that the TIN is not going with blockchain/DLT is that several of the banks signed up to TIN (eg HSBC, Standard Chartered, Santander) are already active with blockchain technology, including projects aimed at the trade finance use case.