The Leading Edge: a look at the most well established DLT projects in trade

Authored by Emmanuelle Ganne and Deepesh Patel

Trade Finance Global (TFG) and the World Trade Organization (WTO), in partnership with the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC), has recently published a whitepaper providing a detailed project by project summary of the DLT in trade industry. To illustrate the industry landscape of today, the whitepaper presents a Periodic Table of DLT Projects.  

The Periodic Table of DLT Projects provides a means of beginning to conceptualize and differentiate between the countless initiatives, projects, consortia, and companies operating in the broad space that can be described by the phrase: DLT in trade. While no simplified diagram of the landscape can ever be able to  fully encapsulate the minutiae and nuances of each and every project, this table provides a starting point for understanding and analyzing the industry.   

This design was selected for several symbolic reasons. Firstly, the Periodic table’s natural inclination is to simultaneously represent striking similarities and distinct differences. On the actual periodic table, hydrogen may be most similar to helium in terms of mass, but the two remain radically different when comes to features like reactivity. On the trade finance periodic table, similar comparisons and contradictions can be made between the projects. Simply because two projects are positioned close to one another, does not mean that these projects can be considered similar across every dimension.

Another reason for selecting this design is its pre-supposed intention to grow and morph over time. The first periodic table of elements, developed in the 1860’s, was made with intentional blank spaces, intended to one day be filled with elements that were predicted to exist, but not yet known. This design represents an inherent understanding that the landscape existing at any given time is not expected to last forever, but will see changes emerge over time. That is how the periodic table of DLT products has been envisioned as well: merely as a momentary snapshot of the industry as it exists today, with plenty of space to grow and change as the forces of Adam Smith’s invisible hand continue to play.

This article will provide a high level overview of 15 of the most developed projects described in detail in the full Whitepaper. 

The white paper found that the average stage of maturity of the projects under consideration is around 2.3 on a scale of 5 (where 1 represents the conceptual / proof of concept (POC) stage and 5 represents live and running (across all products and to all customers), indicating that most projects are between the pilot and early stages of production.

1       Tradelens

Group: Supply Chain Digitization

Category: Shipping and Freight

Underlying Technology: Hyperledger Fabric

Current Stage: [4] Live and running but rolling out complementary products

TradeLens, a collaboration between IBM and Maersk is a trade platform for the supply chain, connecting the entire supply chain ecosystem. The platform is designed to facilitate the sharing of end-to-end supply chain shipping information and documentation across the large number of diverse and interdependent parties involved in typical supply chain transactions. Supply chain information on TradeLens is communicated and stored with privacy and security at the forefront, restricting visibility to authorized parties on the channel. The platform has support from two thirds of container shipping lines globally, over 80 terminals and ports, 17 customs authorities, dozens of inland providers, many corporates and banks, and several leading global and regional freight forwarders live on the platform. As of November 2019, more than two million events and over 15,000 documents are transmitted through the platform daily.

2       Komgo

Group: Trade Finance and Supply Chain Finance

Category: Trade Finance Initiatives

Underlying Technology: Quorum

Current Stage: [4] Live and running but rolling out complementary products

komgo is a live, fully decentralized commodity trade finance network built on the Quorum blockchain infrastructure. The network offers a unique and all-inclusive product suite which answers to the needs of a wide-range of corporate and bank users from across the front, middle and back office functions. The first live transaction on the komgo platform was announced in December 2018. While the firm cannot disclose details of live transactions, they have said that as of September 2019, it has channelled more than $1 billion of financing on the platform. 

3       Open Trade Blockchain (OTB)

Group: Supply Chain Digitization

Category: Shipping and Freight

Underlying Technology: 

Current Stage: [4] Live and running but rolling out complementary products

Open Trade Blockchain (OTB) is a blockchain platform for the trade communities powered by Global eTrade Services (GeTS), a Singapore-based FinTech firm. The platform provides the basic utilities of trade document registration and verification. This is intended to improve efficiency and drive down the costs related to document exchange. The platform works by allowing partner nodes to register an original trade document which can then later be confirmed as an original. To date, OTB has four partner nodes, supports 15 document types, and has registered over 2.5 million different files.

4       Wave

Group: Supply Chain Digitization

Category: DLT Digitization of Trade Documents

Underlying Technology: 

Current Stage: [3.5] Later phase of Production

Wave is a secure All-In-One communication protocol designed to meet the special needs of the B2B community. The Fintech’s service supports all types of trade and trade finance activities including the digitization of original documents such as bills of lading, bills of exchange, and promissory notes among others as well as normal documents and messages. Today, the solution is rolled out with Zim shipping Line and has completed further pilots with 67 banks, 5 Carriers, and hundreds of corporates. So far the company has not announced any further product development but has articulated its intent to remain focused on developing the Wave network and connecting the B2B world.

5       CamelOne

Group: Supply Chain Digitization

Category: Other Initiatives in Trade and Supply Chain Finance 

Underlying Technology: 

Current Stage: [3.5] Later phase of Production

CamelONE is a platform that integrates and connects all stakeholders in the supply chain. The initiative, spearheaded by Singapore-based vCargoCloud, seeks to digitize the entire end-to-end process for trade and supply chain by creating an ecosystem for interaction between government agencies, traders, freight forwarders, warehouses, airlines, shipping lines, banks, financial institutions, and cargo insurance companies. At its core, CamelONE consists of a trade facilitation platform, a cargo community platform, and industry specific eCommerce verticals. A key feature of CamelONE is the idea that it has been designed and implemented on open industry standards allowing it to be fully technology vendor agnostic. This open nature is a crucial aspect contributing to the platforms scalability and general ability to connect all players in a supply chain.

6       we.trade

Group: Trade Finance and Supply Chain Finance

Category: Trade Finance Initiatives

Underlying Technology: Hyperledger Fabric

Current Stage: [3] Entering into production/early stages of production

we.trade Innovation DAC is a joint-venture company owned by 12 European banks that has been in live production since January 2019. It started with nine banks in January 2017 under the name of Digital Trade Chain and later officially changed to we.trade in October 2017. The consortia is the first blockchain-based trade platform for banks and their commercial clients in Europe and originally aimed to service the micro-, small and medium-sized enterprise (MSME) market. We.trade’s current product line consists of auto settlement, bank payment undertaking (BPU), BPU financing, and invoice financing. Future product deployments are expected to include enterprise resource planning (ERP) connectivity, API readiness, additional payment triggers, and the addition of logistics, insurance and customs functionality.

7       Insurwave

Group: Insurance

Category: Insurance

Underlying Technology: Corda

Current Stage: [3] Entering into production/early stages of production

Insurwave is a SaaS private blockchain that connects insurance clients with the insurance market in an efficient, private, and data-rich manner. The company seeks to address the challenges that exist in the complex marine insurance ecosystem, which naturally consists of multiple parties, high transaction volumes, and significant levels of reconciliation. The insurwave solution improves risk assessment and service proposition and reduces costs through the automation or removal of various processes surrounding a sales. Insurwave describes itself as a privacy fabric that connects risk owners, intermediaries, insurers, and capital, minimizing data degradation and maximizing efficiency. Currently in its second year of trading, the venture has won nine international awards for innovation across the insurance and maritime sectors and has now set course to continue trials in Tokyo, Singapore, the USA, and China. 

8       eCOM Asia

Group: Supply Chain Digitization

Category: DLT Digitization of Trade Documents

Underlying Technology: 

Current Stage: [3] Entering into production/early stages of production

The eCOM Registry, created by eCOM Asia, is a platform for the data economy that allows participants to create trusted data, maintain ownership and control of their data, and to securely share the data with other authorized participants. The eCOM registry is currently being used as a trading and finance platform for one of China’s largest food importers.  The platform allows the importer to use their own liquidity to finance Chinese distributors using preferential financing rates outside of China.  They offer up to 90 per cent funding from order and shipment to China, with the balance paid by the distributor when they collect the product. eCOM’s DLT solution provides the tracking, visibility and trust across the import-export trade documents so they can manage the financing process and risk. This project is one of the current active projects that eCOM Asia has disclosed to date focusing on International Trade.

9       Vakt

Group: Supply Chain Digitization

Category: DLT Digitization of Trade Documents

Underlying Technology: Quorum

Current Stage: [3] Entering into production/early stages of production

Vakt, powered by Quorum, is a blockchain based post-trade platform designed for the oil industry. As a post-trade platform, it connects key parties to trades allowing them to handle every step between the initiating trade and final settlement. This includes deal recap, confirmation, contract, logistics, and invoicing. Essentially, Vakt’s management of the post trade cycle eliminates reconciliation and paper-based processes.  Partnering with Komgo’s commodity trade financing network, Vakt will concentrate on the actual raw material transaction, allowing for deals to be processed through the platform. It was originally launched in 2018 by nine of the largest players in global energy commodities trading. Since its launch, it has grown to 12 major shareholders, seven of whom it shares with the Komgo network. 

10     CargoX

Group: Supply Chain Digitization

Category: DLT Digitization of Trade Documents

Underlying Technology: Quorum

Current Stage: [3] Entering into production/early stages of production

CargoX is an independent supplier of an on-chain bill of lading powered by the Ethereum network. They have created a Blockchain Document Transaction System (BDTS) open source protocol to tokenize, encrypt, and transfer the bill of lading along with any additional documents required for trade processes. The system API is enabled for integrations and is interoperable with other blockchains, meaning it can be integrated into other ERP systems to supplement their functionality. According to information on the CargoX website, their blockchain-based bill of lading solution is live.

11     Marco Polo

Group: Trade Finance and Supply Chain Finance

Category: Trade Finance Initiatives

Underlying Technology: Corda

Current Stage: [2.5] Between pilot and production

The Marco Polo Network, powered by R3’s Corda DLT platform, consists of over 30 banks comprising a global reach. The fundamental aim of the network is to facilitate working capital finance solutions via a distributed trade finance platform. This namely includes receivable finance, payables finance, and payment commitment with and without financing. It also provides secure, distributed data storage and bookkeeping, identity management, and asset verification among other features. Open Application Interfaces (APIs) and legacy system compatibility allow banks to easily integrate to their corporate clients with their ERP systems via the Marco Polo Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) App. This helps to limit internal disruptions and eases communication with enterprise clients. 

12 Letter of Credit Network (ex Voltron)

Group: Trade Finance and Supply Chain Finance

Category: Trade Finance Initiatives

Underlying Technology: Corda

Current Stage: [2] Pilot Phase

Project Voltron works with over 50 banks and corporates delivering a Corda-powered open industry platform to create, exchange, approve, and issue letters of credit as its first product. The platform, currently accessible to all customers of member banks, will enable banks to provide faster service levels, financing decisions, and lower rates to their customers. In addition to Voltron created documents, trade documents produced on external networks by a corporation’s supply chain partners can also be digitally sent, verified, and processed in Voltron. Integration to electronic bills of lading from platforms like Bolero and EssDOCS have already been tested in Voltron’s over 25 live data pilot transactions and a variety of other partnerships are being developed for other services related to trade finance. One of those, ReChainMe from the United Arab Emirates announced their first pilot transaction with Project Voltron in June 2019.

13     Finacle Trade Connect

Group: Trade Finance and Supply Chain Finance

Category: Trade Finance Initiatives

Underlying Technology: Corda

Current Stage: [2.5] Between pilot and production

Finacle Trade Connect is the comprehensive blockchain-based solution from Finacle, developed specifically to simplify and digitize the trade finance business process requirements of banks using blockchain. Founded in 2017, the solution helps digitize trade finance business processes, including validation of ownership, certificate of documents and making payments, while working on a distributed, trusted, and shared network and was first piloted as the India Trade Connect project. Their solution supports a comprehensive set of end-to-end trade products and functions including open account, letter of credit, bank guarantee, bill collection, C2C and B2C transactions. Finacle Trade Connect is agnostic to the underlying distributed ledger technology and is certified to work on most major platforms including R3’s Corda, Hyperledger Fabric, and Ethereum stacks. Banks can leverage the solution to adopt one of three key strategies: building inter-banking group networks, curating intra-banking networks, and offering trade-as-a-service.

14     Bolero

Group: Supply Chain Digitization

Category: DLT Digitization of Trade Documents

Underlying Technology: Corda

Current Stage: [2.5] Between pilot and production

Bolero is a non DLT, messaging based platform which allows for secure communication between various trade parties like shipping carriers, corporate clients, and banks. Every party on the Bolero network can send and receive trade transactions using the Bolero messaging protocols. The company has been fundamental in spearheading the development of electronic bills of lading (eBL). Their technology ensures that eBLs are created and transferred between various parties in a trade transaction and their title registry modules maintain eBL title throughout the transaction lifecycle. While Bolero’s original founding in 1998 long pre-dates the era of DLT, the firm has recognized the growing importance of the new technology in the space and has been working heavily with it. Their technology is blockchain agnostic and their aim is to interoperate between different blockchain platforms as well as non-blockchain platforms allowing access to Bolero services through open APIs. 

15     essDOCs

Group: Supply Chain Digitization

Category: DLT Digitization of Trade Documents

Underlying Technology: 

Current Stage: [2.5] Between pilot and production

essDOCS is a paperless, digital trade solution. The company, which has several unique offerings, is best known for its CargoDocs and DocEx solution which is all about electronic Bills of Lading (eBL), electronic warehouse warrants, and technology in a legal solution to facilitate cross border paperless documentation. With 45,000 customers using their solution, essDOCS is tackling the problem of siloed digital islands by using APIs to connect across different platforms and across different consortium solution sets. Doing this essentially allows them to connect across the whole supply chain. To help achieve this supply chain-wide reach, essDOCS has partnered with around a dozen DLT-based consortium. The company has been working heavily on developing their new Cmatch product which they intend to launch by the end of 2019 as a replacement to the SWIFT TSU which is being decommissioned next year. 

Conclusion

The circles shown in the bottom right elements indicate what we believe is the current stage of maturity of the various DLT projects that we cover in this white paper. If 1 represents the conceptual / proof of concept (POC) stage and 5 represents live and running (across all products and to all customers), the average stage of the projects under consideration is around 2.4, indicating that most projects are between the pilot and early stages of production.

For a more detailed look into the projects listed in this article, or any of the other projects in the Periodic table of DLT projects, read the full WTO, TFG, and ICC whitepaper.

Special thanks to David Bischof, ICC Banking Commission