Ant Group launches blockchain trade platform with bank partners
Vivienne Tay
Singapore
ANT Group has launched a blockchain trade platform that has roped in banking partners, in a nod to big tech tying up with big banks to tackle the pain points of trade finance.
Called Trusple, the platform uses the blockchain technology of Ant's blockchain business AntChain to facilitate trade and trade financing. It hopes to serve as a platform for distributors and suppliers to trade their products and access trade financing digitally in real-time.
DBS said it is the first Asian bank partner on the platform. StanChart meanwhile, facilitated a transaction on the platform prior to its launch on Friday. The other bank partners are BNP Paribas, Citibank, Deutsche Bank.
When a buyer or seller generates a digital trade order on Trusple, the order will be automatically recorded on the blockchain. This enhances transparency in complex supply chains, fostering greater trust between parties that may not have interacted before, DBS said.
The platform aims to facilitate greater acceptance and adoption of digital trade processes among corporates, DBS said, especially the small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) that face many pain-points when it comes to international cross border trade.
Member banks will offer payment guarantees for all goods traded on the platform.
The financing bank will automatically dispatch payment to the seller once the buyer digitally acknowledges the receipt of goods on Trusple.
This mitigates the risk of late payments and allows suppliers to enjoy greater predictability of cash flows, enabling them to better optimise their working capital for strategic opportunities to grow their business, DBS said.
Member banks can also harness insights from the transactional data between buyers and suppliers to determine the credit quality of the business and offer competitively-priced trade loans through the platform.
DBS group's head of institutional banking Tan Su Shan said the bank's partnership with AntChain underscores its commitment to SMEs in providing the working capital support that is key to their survival in this period of prolonged trade disruptions.
StanChart global head of business banking and corporate partnerships Neil Daswani said by integrating the bank's financial capabilities into the Trusple network, it can facilitate SME participation in the growing intra-Asia trade ecosystem and support the development of sustainable supply chains in the region.
