DBS Expands Trade Financing Via Contour

The bank, which made its first deal on the platform last year, has moved from Contour’s beta network to its production network.

DBS will offer streamlined digital letters of credit transactions, including the transfer of electronic trade and title documents, for customers across Australia, China, Hong Kong, and Singapore from this month on Contour, according to an announcement on Thursday.

DBS was Singapore’s first lender to join the platform, which provides an end-to-end letters of credit settlement to clients and enables digitalized real-time negotiations, post-endorsement sharing with banks, and real-time tracking of transactions with a full audit trail.

We recognize that digitization is a powerful enabler to simplify the highly complex nature of trade finance, especially for processes relating to letters of credit, Sriram Muthukrishnan, DBS group head of trade product management, said.

Digitising trade processes is also an increasingly relevant and heightened priority for corporates to survive and thrive in the new normal and will form an integral component for resilient trade ecosystems of the future, he added.

Other members of the Singapore-based blockchain trade finance network include BNP Paribas, Bangkok Bank, ING, HSBC, Standard Chartered and Citi Ventures.

Traditional paper-based LC processes have been a major obstacle to trade growth and created unnecessary complexity, cost and delays, DBS said.

The bank noted that Asia pacific is a «key region» leading the digitization of trade finance as banks and corporates seek to mitigate risk and enhance cost efficiency in the wake of the challenges caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.