The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York holds a series of Babylonian clay tablets from Mesopotamia. Dating from anywhere between 300 and 3000 BCE, these relics show promissory notes and letters of credit for everything from fruits to silver. Trade finance has been fuelling global trade for most of human civilisation.
While the industry has moved on from clay tablets, today’s environment still operates within what seems to be an antiquated framework – one that is fragmented and often paper-based. The idea of digitising much of the processes behind the moving ecosystem of corporations, shipping companies, merchants, banks and regulatory authorities has been a top topic for quite some time. But the very nature of trade finance means that digitisation would require a massive worldwide mindset change, rather than solely a technological change.
