Abu Dhabi Commercial Bank (ADCB) has digitised trade finance for its customers using the Singapore-based dltledgers Blockchain platform. ADCB has reported completion of its first live end-to-end trade in Blockchain, moving cross-border goods for Western Red Spring Canadian Wheat worth US$6.5m (AED25m), from Canada to Bangladesh. ADCB is the first bank in the UAE to run the end-to-end Blockchain trade finance transaction with full document automation through the dltledgers platform. This should offer corporate customers efficiencies and faster access to cash.

"By joining the [...] dltledgers Blockchain platform for cross-border trade, the Bank is able to re-imagine trade finance for its customers," said Krishnakumar Duraiswamy, ADCB's group head of Trade Finance. "This private network allows ADCB to service corporate customers in real-time, increasing transparency and building cross-border interconnectivity."

ADCB's private network provided end-to-end trade visibility across the entire life cycle of the transaction with authenticated and consented digitised documents at every step. This transaction involved several trade partners: Islami Bank (Bangladesh), SGS Surveyor, Richardson International Shipping Canada, Banjo Auto Flour Mill Bangladesh and Agrocorp, a large Singapore-based trading house. 

"We could potentially reduce our financing costs by at least 15-20% through dltledgers technology, saving significantly on the costs of physically moving documents," commented Nitin Jain, head of Treasury & Capital Markets at Agrocorp International. "Moving onto the electronic system, we are also able to access earlier financing from banks as the documentation flow is much closer to real-time."

The flow mirrors the traditional letter of credit (LC) process, involving agreeing the terms, the application, the issuance, the advising, the amendment request and its approval, the document presentation, the discrepancy resolution, and the bill settlement instructions. The efficiencies stem from using a single Blockchain network for all participants, instead of relying on multiple systems.

As global trades intertwine and evolve, demands for a networked and collaborative model will intensify. Not only do transactions need to be seamless and safe, clients are increasingly looking for innovative solutions that save them time and costs. Using the dltledgers platform, ADCB says it is able to offer its corporate customers greater confidentiality, the ability to keep a closer tab on the flow of the goods and documentation, faster turnaround, and enhanced fraud prevention. 

"We are extremely delighted to work with ADCB to support their trade finance digitisation through the dltledgers platform," said Samir Neji from dltledgers. "We have huge demand for our network from our 50+ traders signed in from UAE and hence our plan to expand into Middle East and Africa. We have over 400 global traders running 3600 live trades and over $1bn trade financing performed with more than 30 banks globally. We are very bullish of our partnership with ADCB and the region. The growth and sustenance of the global US$8 trillion open account trade finance market are heavily reliant on the easy availability and robustness of financing mechanisms. Considering that trade finance is widely viewed as the fuel for global commerce, it is easy to see why customer-centric Blockchain platforms like ours is dominating conversations in the trade finance world."