Awards for Excellence 2019
Across the world, small and medium-sized enterprises have historically struggled to get financing for efficient solutions for trade operations. Addressing this need is at the top of many SMEs’ concerns.
This year, HSBC was central to one of the most innovative plans to tackle this issue: we.trade. The blockchain-based trade-finance platform completed its first round of transactions in July, executed via HSBC and three other banks.
The trades were typically for less than £50,000 and were made by unidentified European companies from the manufacturing, food, components and residential building sectors. Three HSBC clients were among the first to use the platform.
This initiative follows on from the ground-breaking Cargill trade executed last year by HSBC and ING on the R3 Corda blockchain platform, and it brings distributed-ledger technology (DLT) to smaller business clients.
Juan Marotta |
HSBC was also one of seven original banks involved in the development of eTrade Connect, together with the Hong Kong Monetary Authority, which has drastically cut the time taken to approve trade loan applications in Hong Kong.