Standard Chartered completes cross-bank Letter of Credit blockchain transaction between Vietnam and Thailand

The transaction was realised in partnership with Asian Development Bank (ADB), Bank for Investment and Development of Vietnam, and Standard Chartered Bank (Thai) and was completed over the Contour network, a blockchain-based open industry platform focused on digitising trade finance.

It involved a USD 50,000 shipment of plastics from Thailand’s SCG Plastics to Vietnam’s Opec Plastics Joint Stock Company. Compared to the paper-intensive and time-consuming processes involved in the traditional methods of trade finance, by digitising the end to end exchange of information and streamlining the process of LC issuance and confirmation, all trade participants achieved a reduction in processing time from up to five days to within seven hours.

It also marks the successful completion of ADB’s first credit guarantee using distributed ledger technology, as well as the first of such LC comprising a sell-down feature to be conducted on Contour.