Revving Up: How The Digitalisation Of Trade And Trade Finance Is Accelerating

Global and domestic economies depend upon trade and related trade finance. For centuries, trade and trade finance transactions have been recorded in paper documents. Cross-border trade transactions (totalling more than US$18 trillion annually) involve vast numbers of these paper documents that must pass through the hands of many parties. This process is slow, inefficient, costly, error and fraud prone, environmentally unsound and contributes to a trade finance gap of up to US$2.5 trillion affecting mainly SMEs, prompting the ICCUK-C4DTI to observe: “[T]he trading system suffers from antiquated laws and a lack of standardisation.”Recent decades have witnessed a remarkable digital transformation in the conduct of commerce, with a phenomenal shift from paper-based to electronic processes. That shift is now accelerating in trade and trade finance, supported by law reform. Our two expert presenters will illustrate the immense benefits that proven digital technologies, like blockchain DLT, offer trade and trade finance. They will highlight recent developments in industry, and in legal reforms, as key trade and finance participants - and government entities - hasten to implement simpler, more efficient, secure, sustainable and inclusive digital trade and trade finance processes.