DBS, Standard Chartered To Launch Trade Finance Registry

DBS Group and Standard Chartered are launching a digital trade finance registry along with 12 other Singapore banks, Reuters reports, with the idea being to help reduce the risk of fraud.

Commodity trade experts are teaming up now after a series of defaults in the city-state earlier in the year, the news outlet writes, but no other details were available.

The effort could be the answer to the estimated $1.5 trillion trade finance gap, which experts say results from the lack of cooperation between participants in the field.

Experts say the gap results from efforts at digitization not always being compatible with the vast and complex nature of trade finance, PYMNTS reports. George Lee, chief operating officer of CCRManager, said while digitization is happening in small parts of the system, the worldwide network isn’t collaborative enough to easily transition over to new ways of working.

Digitization is essential to helping to expand the parameters of availability for global traders, though FinTechs haven’t been able to fully capitalize. Lee said there have been a few efforts at it, though, such as the Digital Trade Standards Initiative announced earlier this year, which would help to digitize processes and also standardize data between stakeholders involved in trade finance.

But that, too, will depend on member participation, Lee said.

Standard Chartered has recently debuted Banking-as-a-Service options under a new program called nexus, so that companies like ride-hailing firms, social media sites and eCommerce operations can make their own credit cards, loans and savings account under their own brand names.

The new feature was announced in March, with the company expecting to begin offering new solutions and products through nexus in 2021.

DBS Bank recently teamed with business cloud software platform Infor in order to add new digital trade finance capabilities to Infor’s network, with an eye toward speeding up payments.