ANZ leads regulators towards trade finance blockchain

Regulators in Hong Kong, Singapore and China are working with ANZ Banking Group to digitise trade finance through blockchain technology, a move that will enable banks to make faster lending decisions and regulators to better monitor international capital flows.

ANZ is one of seven banks to create the eTradeConnect platform, which allows importers and exporters to make purchase orders and invoices and pipe relevant data directly to banks to streamline financing decisions.

Vivek Gupta, ANZ’s head of trade and supply chain for North Asia and greater China, said the platform was the first commercialised trade ecosystem built on blockchain.

He said two key regulators in the region, the Hong Kong Monetary Authority and the Monetary Authority of Singapore, were “extremely progressive” in thinking about digitising what traditionally had been mostly paper-based processes, because they recognised this would improve the access to capital for businesses across the region.

The other founding members of eTradeConnect, which went live in November, are HSBC, Standard Chartered, Bank of China, DBS of Singapore, Hang Seng Bank and Bank of East Asia. The blockchain is using Hyperledger technology, developed by Chinese conglomerate Ping-An.

The banks are now preparing to admit major logistics, shipping and insurance companies to the network, which will help cut the average time it takes a bank to make a financing decision from about a month to a fortnight.

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Source: ANZ leads regulators towards trade finance blockchain