Blockchain

#dltledgers is the leading independent blockchain platform for trade, trade finance and supply chain digitisation. The company enables seamless inter-enterprise connectivity, which reduces friction while increasing efficiency, visibility and trust across value chains.  

Advertisment

#dltledgers is headquartered in Singapore with 400 traders, 45 banks and 4500 registered network partners. The company has digitised the execution of over US$3 billion worth of physical trades. This makes the #dltledgers platform one of the few live, enterprise blockchain solutions in the world. With the onset of the global pandemic in recent months, the adoption of the #dltledgers platform has increased dramatically as companies look for ways to create working capital efficiency in their supply chains, reduce cost, and improve access to finance.  

Customers of #dltledgers are mostly commodity traders, manufacturers, and the trade finance department of commercial banks. Its transactions involve buying and selling a range of different commodities and merchandise such as metals and minerals, soft commodities, oil and energy, and manufactured goods. The company also works with ports, carriers, government departments, insurers, and logistics providers. In different ways, these groups benefit from a better path of collaborating with their counterparties. #dltledgers provides a common platform with which the customers can automate the current manual processes, reduce the reliance on paperwork, and improve speed and transparency without giving up proprietary knowledge or contacts. The company mitigates counterparty risk and reduces cycle times by up to 25%.  

To make this possible, the #dltledgers platform draws on 16 different modules that manage everything from supplier onboarding to trade document digitisation and storage. Also at the core of the system is a proprietary integration layer called BCLink, which leverages APIs to push and pull data from any ERP, CTRM or third-party system. These include Microsoft and SAP systems, for which #dltledgers is a certified technology partner.  

Advertisment

 

Focusing on Underlying Blockchain Technology to Benefit Enterprises 

Although when #dltledgers was launched right at the height of the ICO frenzy in 2017, the founders resisted the temptation to create a token-based business model and raise millions of dollars in an ICO. Instead, the company focused on how the underlying blockchain technology could be used to create efficiency and advantage for enterprises. There appeared to be a gap that blockchain could fill. While companies had an overwhelming choice of enterprise software to help them create efficiency WITHIN their businesses, there was no break-out solution for solving INTER-enterprise friction. When it came to collaborating with suppliers, partners, distributors, and customers, the same frictions and difficulties persisted.  

#dltledgers set out to streamline and digitise the processes occurring between enterprises, and to enable integration and seamless data transfer between parties, which could reduce effort, errors, and delays, and increase transparency and trust. Early in #dltledgers’ development, the company had decided to tackle one of the world’s most inefficient, trustless, and sizeable sectors - cross-border trade. #dltledgers’ technology has been developed specifically with that market in mind. The #dltledgers platform now incorporates a number of discrete modules, each focused on a key issue within global trade: trade finance digitisation, transparency and auditability, digitised trade documents, blockchain APIs, financial institution connectivity, and so on. International trade is laden with archaic, manual processes, lack of trust between parties, and inefficiencies like the transfer of physical documents. #dltledgers’ blockchain platform has been developed to tackle these issues holistically, by taking into account the points of view of each trade participant: buyers, sellers, finance providers, carriers, inspectors, auditors, and regulators.  

Since the launch of #dltledgers, the company has focused on the digitisation of cross-border trade execution. However, the platform has grown to accommodate different use cases, including tier-two supplier tracking, multi-bank connectivity, sustainability tracking, supplier financing, 4-way document matching, and a number of bank-to-bank/customer collaboration initiatives.  

Advertisment

 

The Force Behind #dltledgers 

#dltledgers is the brainchild of the company’s founder Samir Neji. As a serial entrepreneur, Samir believed that the enterprise applications of blockchain technology were as interesting as the prospect of digital currencies. He felt that inter-enterprise collaboration was where the opportunity lays. Organisations still struggled with a lack of trust, visibility, and authenticity of data. Productivity was consistently held back by manual checking, emails, phone calls, paper documents, and a lack of data synchronicity. Using blockchain, Samir believes that these gaps issued could be resolved by helping supply chain participants to integrate their systems and data in a way that transforms productivity and transparency, while preserving the security and privacy of each party’s information. He regularly speaks on the topic ‘enterprise blockchain,’ and works closely with businesses, finance communities, and governments across Asia. 

 

Voicing in Support of Global Trade Digitisation 

The Singaporean Government has championed #dltledgers as a leader in trade, supply chain, and trade finance digitisation. The company is at the core of a number of government and financial initiatives and is a prominent voice in support of global trade digitisation, which #dltledgers trusts will become the only way of preserving access to capital for the world’s cross-border trade community. 

In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, along with US-China geopolitical tensions and a spate of frauds and defaults in Asia, the trade and finance communities have retreated. Total commodity trade finance revenues dropped 40%. Several European banks such as ABN Amro, BNP Paribas, and Société Générale cut back their trade and commodity finance activities or ceased them completely. For many traders, especially the smaller companies, the result came from a shortage of working capital, inability to fund deals, lower revenues, job losses, and sometimes bankruptcy. 

Advertisment

#dltledgers is committed to helping these companies become more attractive to potential finance providers. #dltledgers assumes that this can only be achieved by increasing transparency, removing unknowns, and decreasing risks. This is exactly what blockchain can provide. 

 

Staying on the Edge with Disruptive Technologies 

#dltledgers reckons that emerging technologies such as Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning are complementary rather than a conflict. To some extent, the #dltledgers platform relies on all the disruptive technologies. For example, the company’s nodal network is hosted in the cloud. It leverages the ‘big data’ generated by IoT devices and uses AI for data analysis and document matching. 

#dltledgers makes it clear that disruptive technologies could be used in a single transaction such as the movement of a commodity through the supply chain. Take for example, the discharge of fuel from a refinery to a vessel. #dltledgers uses a sensor and custody transfer meter (IoT) to measure the volume of fuel being transferred, as well as other attributes like fuel quality or water content. These IoT devices produce a high volume of (big) data, which consolidates and records, immutably in the blockchain. This data is filed alongside the digitised trade documents, contracts, and surveyors reports that relate to the appropriate transaction, then made available to the relevant ‘permissioned’ counterparties. One or more of those parties will likely be a bank, which upon notification when the correct amount of fuel has been transferred can trigger settlement automatically. Meanwhile, AI helps to reconcile the IoT data with the purchase orders, commercial invoices, goods receipts, and payment confirmations, validating the trade and identifying any trends or anomalies. Not only that, but the same blockchain is being used to catalogue the independent maintenance and calibration of the IoT devices involved, providing all parties with absolute assurance of what was transferred, between which parties, when, how much it cost, how it was funded, how it was recorded, and when the transaction was settled. 

Advertisment

 

The Strategy Behind Successful Innovation 

While being a first-mover in trade gave #dltledgers a head-start over competitors, the company’s strategy for staying ahead of the curve has three parts: hiring, partnering, and continuous learning. While hiring, #dltledgers looks for a combination of industry expertise, agility, and adaptability. When it comes to complementary technology, the company has a policy of partnering with or acquiring the leading businesses in their field exclusively. #dltledgers is also focused on applying the learnings from multi-billion-dollars-worth of trade, across a mixture of commodities to identify ways to continue driving automation, creating efficiency, removing cost, and providing users with an unfair advantage over their competition. 

 

Conquering the Geographical Barriers Across Borders 

#dltledgers faces three main challenges that stand out. Firstly, as a startup based in Southeast Asia, #dltledgers constantly fights the battle to find and attract the right talent, who can help keep the company at the forefront of the blockchain industry. Most recently it hired Farooq Siddiqi, former global head of trade finance at Standard Chartered Bank as Co-CEO. It also hired senior positons across verticals and is looking to fill more key positions within the company. Secondly, #dltledgers is tackling one of the planet’s oldest and most entrenched industries – cross-border trade. Inertia is strong, and in some circles, transparency is seen as a bad thing. Although that opinion is changing, especially since COVID-19, the company has not yet reached the tipping point at which digitisation is recognised as an immediate necessity. For now, #dltledgers is focusing on building ecosystems around the early adopters. The company envisions that it could make the ecosystem extremely dominant in the future. The third is regulation. When digitising processes agreements between countries and continents, it is often necessary to find consensus between regulators and governing bodies in different jurisdictions. For example, the acceptance of digitally signed documents or electronic Bills of Lading (eBLs). Although when this is common in some parts of the world, others have not permitted. #dltledgers have little doubt that these will become universally accepted eventually. The company anticipates that it will take time. 

 

Notable Awards and Recognitions

#dltledgers has won remarkable awards as follows,  

  • Global Trade Connect Winner  
  • PIER71 Finalist Smart Port Challenge 2018 
  • Global Logistics Forum Finalist 2019 
  • MENA Fintech Top 15 2019 
Advertisment

 

The Future is Powered by Blockchain  

Blockchain technology has untold potential. #dltledgers has no doubt that the technology will reshape not only the entire industry but also the way the world functions. This has not escaped the majority of businesses. While three or four years ago blockchain was still thought of largely as an experiment, recent research shows that enterprises are now convinced. In a recent IBM study, around 85% of the companies interviewed said they expect to be using at least one blockchain platform within the next two to three years. With the adding potential of digital currencies (issued by the central bank), the increasing ability to authenticate transactions without relying on law firms and intermediaries, and the possibilities that it will surface when blockchains become interoperable is hard to imagine. No industry will remain untransformed.