we.trade

You are reading about: "we.trade"

By Diana

Published November 3, 2018

Brand

Promise

We.trade is a trade finance consortium, a joint venture of several bank giants - HSBC, Deutsche, Santander, Societe Generale, Erste, Unicredit and others.

we.trade: About the Platform

We.trade is a joint venture of several bank giants - HSBC, Deutsche, Santander, Societe Generale, Erste, Unicredit and others.

The up-to-date list of all we.trade banks can be found here.

We.trade is a blockchain consortium focused on the applications ofblockchain technology in trade finance. It particularly targets the needs of small to medium enterprises (SME).

There are many opportunities for blockchain implementation in the SME area of trade finance as explained by a trade finance professional:

Data used for most models in trade finance is not representative of the credit risk of small corporates. That is one of the main explanations of the credit crunch experienced by small and medium-sized enterprises.

The challenge that blockchain can help with is to make information about SMEs accessible. Blockchain does not address these problems with data access directly. But it offers strong technological framework that provides motivation for businesses to start working on solutions.

The we.trade network focuses on the technological support of SMEs and their activities such as international invoice settlements, leveraging blockchain technology to cut processing costs or arranging KYC/AML services.

we.trade and blockchain technology

The we.trade platform is built on Hyperledger Fabric as the underlying blockchain technology, particularly leveraging the the Hyperledger Fabric feature called “channels”.

Channels are essentially private blockchains living on Hyperledger. Only authorized peers have access to information within a channel.

The solution we.trade offers is therefore mostly a technological innovation, but still coupled with the network effect and contacts of the consortium members. In effect, we.trade provides a whole host of service to its member businesses:

financing and advisory for business growth
access to global market
trust & transparency
reduction of back-office overhead

The Business Intelligence for we.trade

We.trade is an Irish company we.trade Innovation DAC with office location at The Greenway, 112-114 Ardilaun Court, St. Stephens Green, Dublin D02 TD28 Ireland.

The we.trade alliance only emerged in 2018 as a joint venture of major banking giants. However, the blockchain platform launched as an already finished and tested product: The consortium was first heard of in April 2018, launch was announced in June 2018 and news about first production trade finance transactions came up on 3 July 2018.

we.trade blockchain platform completes multiple real-time customer transactions

In October 2018, we.trade was seen in the news thanks to their proof-of-concept project in collaboration with the new Hong Kong trade platform e-Trade Connect.

The project will investigate whether the platforms of we.trade and e-Trade Connect can interoperate to settle trade finance transactions.

Blockchain consortium we.trade makes first move towards Asia expansion at Global Trade Review

Also in October 2018, three former Batavia consortium banks joined the we.trade alliance.

CaixaBank, Erste Group and UBS join we.trade as shareholders and banking partners

Batavia was a notable blockchain consortium supported by IBM, running on the Hyperledger blockchain like we.trade. Batavia merged with we.trade in October 2018.