Singapore to work with Hong Kong on blockchain-based trade financing

SINGAPORE (Nov 14): Singapore, with a value of trade more than three times its Gross Domestic Product, is moving ahead to reduce the paperwork needed to process physical trade and also make it more secure through distributed ledger technology.

The Monetary Authority of Singapore and the Hong Kong Monetary Authority will jointly develop the Global Trade Connectivity Network. The GTCN, announced on Tuesday by MAS managing director Ravi Menon at the second Singapore FinTech Festival, will be a cross-border platform for trade finance using blockchain, which is created via distributed ledger technology.

“GTCN will be an open architecture platform that enables the seamless transfer of digital documents and data across borders, starting with the Singapore-Hong Kong trade corridor. If all goes well, we expect the GTCN to go live in early 2019,” says Menon.

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