Standard Chartered has announced a strategic investment into Linklogis, a Chinese supply chain financing platform, to enhance its joint supply chain ecosystem proposition and provide suppliers with access to financing. This marks the Bank’s first investment in a supply chain platform in China, as well as the first global bank investor in Linklogis.

The purchase of the equity stake also builds on Standard Chartered’s ongoing partnership with Linklogis, which started in February 2019 with the signing of a memorandum of understanding to jointly develop and deliver a supply chain financing proposition, and the completion of several joint deep-tier supply chain financing transactions.

Standard Chartered says it will continue to leverage Linklogis’ technology and expertise to provide large corporate buyers with greater visibility and transparency of their extensive network of suppliers, as well as cheaper and easier access to financing for suppliers further upstream. In addition to offering these capabilities to onshore customers, both parties will explore new opportunities, including the extension of these solutions to support cross-border flows.

“Corporate clients globally are increasingly looking for efficient and secure digital platforms to meet their supply chain financing needs,” said Benjamin Hung, regional CEO for Greater China & North Asia at Standard Chartered. “Our strategic investment into Linklogis not only allows us to better serve our clients by being a part of their integrated ecosystem, it also reinforces our efforts to support China’s opening by facilitating the flow of capital, particularly for the Greater Bay Area.”

“Providing deep-tier supply chain financing is a key priority in our strategy to support our clients’ entire sales and distribution network,” added Simon Cooper, CEO of Corporate, Commercial and Institutional Banking at Standard Chartered. “To that end, we are excited to deepen our partnership with Linklogis, who shares our commitment in helping businesses around the world create healthy and sustainable supply chains by banking their suppliers and distributors.”

“It has always been the strategic goal of Linklogis to develop innovative tech-enabled supply chain financing platform for the betterment of market efficiency and in support of real economy,” concluded Charles Song, chairman and CEO of Linklogis.