Prominent Brazlian bank, Banco Bradesco, has become the latest institution to join R3’s Marco Polo blockchain network for trade finance, according to a press release shared with Cointelegraph on May 14.

Banco Bradesco is among Brazil’s leading banks, with total assets worth $338.2 billion and a market capitalization of $49.1 billion, the press release states.

The Marco Polo network implements R3’s Corda enterprise blockchain technology together with a distributed trade finance platform from TradeIX. It is designed to provide greater cost and time efficiencies — as well as transparency — to commercial banks’ traditional and structured trade finance solutions.

As reported, the network counts major global banks such as BNP Paribas, ING and Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation as members. Other high-profile members include Standard Chartered Bank and NatWest, with the press release claiming that Marco Polo is ostensibly the “largest network of commercial banks leveraging blockchain for trade finance.”

As today’s press release states, the blockchain-powered platform offers technological solutions such as APIs and an ERP-embedded application designed to innovate working capital finance.

Member banks can reportedly experiment with blockchain technology and share their implementation experience before they start to differentiate their own respective trade finance solutions on the distributed platform.

Daniel Cotti — managing director at the Center of Excellence, Banking & Trade for the Marco Polo Network — outlined the impetus for the creation of a blockchain-powered trade finance network, noting that today’s trade processes are compromised by a lack of connectivity.

This fragmentation ostensibly occurs between both financial institutions and their customers, as well as within the commercial banking sector itself and third party service providers. Cotti added that onboarding Banco Bradesco heralds Marco Polo’s first pilot in the Latin American region.

In March 2019, Marco Polo successfully conducted its first live trade finance operations in a deal involving two German firms and major local bank Commerzbank. Just a week ago, Austria’s Raiffeisen Bank International (RBI) also joined Marco Polo.

A separate trade finance blockchain platform — the IBM-powered We.trade — made its commercial debut in July 2018.