R3 Blockchain Consortium, a group comprising over 50 major financial and tech institutions across the globe, has been successful in solving various trade challenges using the blockchain technology.

The New York-based fintech firm has recently announced an unprecedented success with its Corda distributed financial ledger. The trial involving invoice financing and letter of credit transactions was conducted in partnership with 15 consortium members. Through these trials, the consortium has proven twice that the digital currency technology can address key challenges faced by trade finance industry across the world.

The 15 financial institutions that took part in the trial include: Barclays, BBVA, BNP Paribas, Commonwealth Bank of Australia, Danske Bank, ING, Intesa Sanpaolo, Natixis, Norder, Scotiabank, UBS, UniCredit, U.S. Bank and Wells Fargo.

Smart contracts have proven to enable automation of various trade processes, thus reducing settlement times to great extents. The blockchain’s immutable nature is also instrumental in preventing fraud, thereby saving millions of dollars annually. As a part of the trial, participants used smart contracts created over the proprietary R3 Corda distributed financial ledger platform to process accounts receivable and purchase transactions.

The implementation of smart contracts to process invoice financing and letter of credit operations is found to increase transparency. With Corda, both parties involved in the trade will be able to communicate, access and verify information about each other before finalizing transactions. It will also make regulatory compliance easier and cost effective for the financial institutions.

In a statement to the press, David Rutter – the CEO of R3 says,

“Trade financing is a crucial income stream for banks and provides an integral role in enabling businesses in different countries to trade with each other with certainty and peace of mind. However, the processes used to facilitate trade financing have become antiquated and unfit for purpose in today’s increasingly digital world. These trials have proved that the blockchain-inspired technology used on our Corda platform holds the key to transforming trade financing for modern financial markets.”

The success of Corda’s trials has validated the benefits of Blockchain technology in banking and financial sector. The estimated cost benefits of using Corda based solution against traditional paper-based trade financing is slated to be anywhere around 10% to 15%. The cost benefit will directly reflect in company’s profits.

Ref: R3 Press Release | Image: R3CEV