Japan’s third-largest bank by assets Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation (SMBC) has successfully implemented Marco Polo’s blockchain trade finance platform, according to the official press release on Oct 18.
With the seamless implementation of the Proof-of-Concept (PoC) deploying Marco Polo’s blockchain trade finance platform, SMBC is all set to make an official rollout of the blockchain platform commercially by the end of this year.
The platform that was jointly developed by the R3 LLC and TradeIX Limited enabled carrying out actual cross-border trading with Mitsui & Co, Indorama Ventures Group, Bangkok Bank Public Company Limited, and SMBC.
SMBC takes blockchain trade finance to next level
Customarily, activities like the exchange of purchase orders, logistics details, invoicing, and shipping schedules are primarily paper-based documentation. With Marco Polo’s platform, digitization has taken over, making data reconciliation a highly effective and seamless task.
Using PoC, each party involved in the transaction, was able to update the requisite information and share it with the concerned stakeholders at the same time, making live sharing of the most up-to-date information possible.
It was further confirmed that Bangkok Bank was able to deliver a payment guarantee for Indorama to Mitsui & Co and that Mitsui & Co was able to request outstanding amounts from SMBC, all based on payment guarantee executed on Marco Polo platform.
The auto data-matching feature on the platform enables efficient data reconciliation, demonstrating numerous possibilities by exploring the blockchain trade finance platform.
As part of its vision to stand out as an industry leader for offering modern-age trade finance solutions and exploiting blockchain’s potential in streamlining operational processes, SMBC is preparing itself to commercially introduce the Marco Polo platform, utilizing open-source Corda, by Q3 of FY2019.
