Amid geopolitical uncertainties and digital transformation, the transfer of data across borders is becoming increasingly crucial in unlocking logistical bottlenecks, lower trade costs, increasing supply chain transparency and improving regulatory compliance.
As the adoption of cloud computing increases in the region, the seamless flow of data is highly dependent on improved access, speed, and reduced network traffic to be efficient for businesses conducting secure cross-border trade.
However, acute challenges are increasing the friction that makes cross-border data flows more difficult. As a result, existing complexities in global commerce are exacerbated, hampering the growth of digital economies.
Reducing reliance on paper-heavy, manual workflows and disparate management systems is fundamental to reducing this friction and facilitating the electronic exchange of information internationally.
In addition, the status quo here will aggravate the current state of play, which is already mired by a lack of transparency obstructing organisations from access to international financing that is paramount to their success.
As the aftereffects of the current post-pandemic environment continue to impact trade flows and supply chains, global commerce needs to change to be more robust to address the stark challenges it faces.
Enterprises should increase transparency, digitise supply chain and logistics operations, enable access to data and align with regulatory, compliance frameworks to succeed in modern-day international trade.
As regulators globally and international finance increase scrutiny and oversight, the need to stay nimble, reduce time-to-market by harnessing digital technology, to improve planning, fulfilment and working capital management capabilities becomes an imperative.
Continue to impact trade flows and supply chains, global commerce needs to change to be more robust to address the stark challenges it faces. Enterprises should increase transparency, digitise supply chain and logistics operations, enable access to data and align with regulatory, compliance frameworks to succeed in modern-day international trade.
As regulators globally and international finance increase scrutiny and oversight, the need to stay nimble, reduce time-to-market by harnessing digital technology, to improve planning, fulfilment and working capital management capabilities becomes an imperative.
Unprecedented security and transparency
Legacy trade and data transfer systems perpetuate inefficiencies in the international trade and financing environment. It is critical for enterprises to reduce their dependence on legacy systems in favour of technology that integrates existing and new deployments while increasing transparency, efficiency, and productivity.
A distributed ledger technology or blockchain-based solution enhances data flows and integrates information and services across locations and environments while improving collaboration and oversight.
Distributed ledger technology, while significantly boosting transparency for all users, across finance, audit and compliance, ensures increased trust as well as privacy and security of data.
It enables organisations and buyers to continuously track financial transactions, providing auditors and regulators real-time access to transactional data, documentation, and ledgers, to enable the monitoring of risks more effectively.
This increased visibility across the supply chain, enables financial institutions to conduct business with increased confidence while providing access to much-needed funds to trading firms.
Furthermore, verifiable audit trails and enhanced supply chain visibility allow banks to make credit decisions quickly. In turn, this enables businesses to obtain financing more efficiently and facilitates frictionless and secure cross-border transactions.
In eliminating human error in the paperwork, distributed ledger technology harnesses real-time validation and authentication by recording every element of each transaction in a secure and un-editable digital form. As such, the transaction ensures all parties view and trace all relevant and necessary data and be certain of its authenticity.
By codifying stakeholders’ rights, obligations and ownership, distributed ledger technology produces a single source of truth which eliminates the need for bilateral reconciliation, along with many other inefficiencies encountered in legacy systems.
Another benefit of distributed ledger technology is the improvement of interoperability between different functions by eliminating data silos and the processing gap between front and back-office functions.
As such, this benefits all parties in the trade, especially smaller trading firms that are significantly boosted by the speed of settlements, which reduces cashflow and the attendant financial risks. This enables firms to free up capital to focus on growth and be more efficient by lowering associated required cash buffers.
With an immutable version of every client record, client boarding also becomes infinitely more seamless and vastly improves relationship management processes.
Accelerating data flows and driving efficiency
Moving away from existing legacy systems and leveraging blockchain solutions with distributed ledger technology, empowers businesses to enhance transparency, safeguard sensitive data and unlock greater business efficiency.
Digitised supply chains enable enterprises to automate workflows and processes, seamlessly connecting with an organisation's existing systems, applications, and products. This equips enterprises to synchronise export and import operations with multiple global suppliers while improving customer confidence and protecting customer integrity.
Blockchain-based, cross-border trade digitisation is innovating enterprise applications, offering operational resilience, business efficiency and ease of use. Harnessing its advanced, no-code capabilities, organisations can reduce manual processes, enhance multi-party collaboration through reduced friction, strengthen core operations and maximise strategic growth.
