Barclays Waves Hello To Blockchain For Trade Finance

Last week, U.K. bank giant Barclays was reported to have signed not one, but two contracts with startups that are working to implement blockchain technology into the global market. One of those startups is Wave, which graduated from the TechStars FinTech accelerator program last week, according to reports from CoinDesk on Thursday (Oct. 15).

The site talked to the startup about its plans for the blockchain. For Wave, it’s all about facilitating trade finance through the ledger technology.

“Blockchain is a very good solution to eliminate the pain in international trade,” said Wave Founder Gadi Ruschin in an interview with the site, “because you have an industry that combines all industries, because all industries are either importers or exporters at some level. You have the carrier, the bank and the customer, and it’s hard to find one centralized entity everyone can work with.”

According to reports, Wave wants to be that centralized entity. However, Ruschin noted that its service can enter the market without removing the need for intermediaries.

Wave uses electronic documents stored in blockchain metadata, reports said. That information travels between the two parties through the blockchain.

The company sees its service as a way to replace traditional bill of lading documents used by trading partners that provide information on shipments. That document then comes with invoices and certificates.

[bctt tweet=”Wave sees its service as a way to replace traditional bill of lading documents.”]

“All these processes are based on antiquated tools on the supply chain,” Ruschin told CoinDesk, highlighting the potential for processing problems and fraud with paper-based supply chain operations.

Ruschin noted that Wave’s service does not transmit anything via blockchain but instead uses the technology to “manage the ownership of each document or good in transport.” The technology can reportedly integrate with any blockchain.

This means that it does not have to be dealing with bitcoin to function, and Wave added that it will likely look for an alternative to the cryptocurrency due to the “regulation problem” it currently faces, Ruschin told the site.

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