About
Trade finance is plagued by slow, paper-heavy processes which is vulnerable to document fraud & duplicate invoice financing. Cumulatively, these inefficiencies result in hidden costs of up to 15% of the value of traded goods. TradeChain is a platform introduced by ICICI bank which uses Blockchain technology for digital processing of Inland Trade transactions. The vision is to create an inclusive blockchain eco-system for trade finance partnering corporates, competing banks and market intermediaries like insurance & logistics companies. It covers a wide scope of transactions like open account, letter of credit issuance & advising, bill presentation and acceptance.
Innovation presentation
TradeChain is evolutionary as it aims to create an ecosystem that facilitates trade on blockchain technology. The platform uses Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) which records transactions only once thereby, enabling immutability of information.
Crunching working capital cycle by over 75%, the platform proved that blockchain technology can solve real world bank operational challenges. It also promises to improve the cycle time on related products. In addition to operational cost savings, the digitization of information is reducing the need to courier physical documents and the transaction costs of intermediary messaging systems is eliminated. All documents received on the platform are uniquely identified and stored. In addition, the platform provides dashboards, which tracks trade transactions across life cycle on real time basis.
Uniqueness of the project
TradeChain aims to adopt an ecosystem approach towards end to end trade digitization, by virtually connecting enterprises across their entire value chain on one single platform interface. It not only resolves customer pain points but also decongests processes at the bank’s end with digitization, automation, minimum manual validation & processing.
TradeChain transformed the below areas:
- Trust enabled commerce
- Trusted ecosystem
- Trusted governance
With this the bank is in a position to spearhead this first to market initiative and build an ecosystem of blockchain in the country.
