HSBC is set to start its ‘digital trade finance’ that is based on distributed ledger technology globally.
It is going to reduce amount of time it takes to process trade settlements that from ten days to one day and commercialize trading financial platform that digitalizes every trade process. Starting from this week, it will be looking to make partnership with South Korea’s commercial banks.
HSBC held a press conference on the 12th and introduced ‘Voltron’ project based on R3 Corda blockchain technology.
“There is an opportunity for blockchain to become a catalyst for digitalizing South Korea’s trade industry.” said Joshua Kroeker, who is the innovation director of HSBC. “South Korea, which is the top 5 exporting country, can become the leader of digital trade finance by utilizing blockchain.”
HSBC made a request to South Korea Government organizations and South Korean commercial banks to participate in its digital trade finance project. It hinted that it would start having negotiations behinds the scenes starting from this week to sign close partnership with banks and government organizations.
Voltron is a blockchain platform that digitalizes every process needed for trade finance. Through this platform, exporting and importing companies and their respective banks can directly receive and send calls in real-time without sending documents. HSBC announced that Voltron can drastically reduce time it takes to process letter of credit.
“In May of last year, we had implemented every process of trade financial transactions with Cargill, which is a global corporation, through Voltron.” said Kroeker. “Participating companies will be able to enjoy many advantages such as reduction of trading hours as well as securement of transparency, easily accessible transactions, strengthened security, and reduction in costs.”

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<Joshua Kroeker, who is the innovation director of HSBC, held a press conference on the 12th and talked about future of trade finance through blockchain.>

Besides transactions with Cargill, it also performed two cases of transactions utilizing blockchain in India and Singapore. Reliance Industries from India participated in Voltron platform and implemented world’s first 100% corporate to corporate digital trade transactions.
Reason why it takes so much time from opening a letter of credit to settlement of funds is because there are many businesses when it comes to transferring and trading ownership of products. As a result, there needs to be separate communication to each process and documents need to be sent physically. HSBC is planning to eliminate this inconvenience by uploading every process to a blockchain node.
Paper documents are needed to connect each solution since process of trade finance is separated from each other. HSBC announced that it would eliminate every paper document needed for trade finance and globally implement a system that drastically improves trade process and trading speed.
“We are looking for trade partners in South Korea as well and we are expecting to have partnership with supervisory organizations, South Korean businesses, and commercial banks.” said Kroeker. “We have already started having negotiations with major banks behind the scenes.”
HSBC is looking to increase number of partnering financial institutions by working with R3 and it expects that many banks will start focusing on trade financial transactions through blockchain this year.
It also predicts that customers will utilize digital solutions such as corporate Swift for electronic bill of lading, mobile and desktop trading applications, and trades during this process and prepare for a period when they will start embracing blockchain systems.
Besides Voltron, HSBC is also participating in other blockchain platforms such as ‘eTradeConnect’ and ‘we.trade’. eTradeConnect platform has investments from 7 banks and is supported by The Hong Kong Monetary Authority. we.trade is a joint company that was established by 12 banks including HSBC to provide blockchain network to trades within major European markets.
Staff Reporter Gil, Jaeshik | osolgil@etnews.com