The banking trade association BAFT has shared the results of a trade technology survey conducted during the summer with technology firm CGI. It listed five popular trade finance networks, of which four are blockchain networks. However, the 200 survey respondents favored the Trade Information Network (TIN) by a reasonable margin and TIN does not use blockchain.
In a sign of network effects, the more popular networks already adopted are also more popular with those planning to join a network. The order of the blockchain platforms is Marco Polo, we.trade, Contour and komgo. Almost two-thirds of respondents were unaware of the national trade platforms in Singapore and Hong Kong (eTradeConnect).
Nearly 30% of survey participants said they had some blockchain involvement, either with a trade network or a blockchain provider.
COVID-19 and its impact were reflected in the results, with more than 70% saying the culture had become more innovative in the last 12 months and 85% said digitization efforts increased. The biggest barriers to innovation are budget, resource limitations, and uncertainty about the value proposition.
“Over the last 10 years of my career, we have been discussing automating trade finance processes,” said Stacey Facter, SVP, trade products, BAFT. “COVID-19 has underscored the need to move away from paper and seemingly expedited the transition. BAFT works to identify barriers to innovation and address them head on to continue driving the global trade finance industry to embrace digitalization.”
While 87% said that working with fintech is important or very important, it looks like the experience is not that great. More than half gave only three out of five in terms of satisfaction with the performance and progress, although just 13.6% ranked it below three.
The majority of respondents were from North America and combined with Western Europe, the figure was 77%. And just over half of the participants consider large multinational corporates as their client portfolio.
