Bangkok Bank joins Marco Polo trade finance initiative powered by blockchain

Launched in 2017, Marco Polo is focusing on a Trade Finance Platform built on an interoperable business network powered by open Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) and blockchain technology.

Together with some of the world’s financial institutions, TradeIX and R3 have developed for Marco Polo a solution for Open Account trade financing powered by TradeIX’s TIX platform and R3’s Corda blockchain technology.

Marco Polo enables end-to-end, real-time, seamless connectivity between trade participants, eliminating the data silos which prevent free flow of trade data and assets causing inefficiencies and discrepancies. 

Initially the solution is focused on three distinct areas of trade finance: risk mitigation by provision of payment commitments based on the matching of trade data, payables finance, and receivables finance. It will be delivered via TradeIX’s TIX platform, an open platform providing applications, technology tools and core infrastructure for the trade finance ecosystem, and Corda, the world’s only blockchain platform designed from the ground up for businesses operating in complex and highly-regulated markets.

Bangkok Bank is one of Southeast Asia’s regional banks and a provider of corporate finance and SME lending in Thailand. The bank’s international network includes 32 overseas branches in 15 economies -Cambodia, Cayman Islands, China, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Japan, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Taiwan, the UK, the US and Vietnam as well as relationships with more than 1,000 correspondent banks worldwide.