Building a Global Trade Ecosystem

At CordaCon 2020, Contour’s Josh Kroeker gave an insightful presentation on building a global trade ecosystem. Contour is building the global standard for trade by bringing together the world’s banks, corporates and ecosystem partners on a common, trusted digital network – one powered by innovation, collaboration and blockchain technology.

During the session, Josh described how transforming trade with blockchain will act as a catalyst for digitization of the paper and process-driven international trade industry, and mapped out the dynamics of trade finance that are driving this transformation. He also explained why more and more corporates are looking to digitize their trade and trade finance activities with Contour.

“Contour has moved from consortium to company through building, testing and building,” said Josh. “When looking at building any new network or transformational solution, you have to start with the problem. And the problem for trade and trade finance comes down to a lack of operational efficiency, and silos of development in terms of technological advancement.”

The underlying issue is that across all the parties involved in trade – buyers and sellers, banks providing a trade finance facility or loan, shipping companies, ports, customs and more – the common denominator is paper. Digitization solutions based on centralised databases have been met with suspicion. However, as Josh explained: “Blockchain can allow all of these industries – which are very much connected in their business processes, but that’s about it – to come together on a common network and use common standards to really increase the pace of digitization to a level we’ve never seen before. We think that this can reduce barriers to trade and trade finance, and enrich communities through more global trade.”

“We need to work together to make sure we don’t replace the digital silos that exist today with blockchain silos. We solve this by ensuring collaboration extends out to the entire industry.” – Josh Kroeker, CPO, Contour

To learn more about Contour’s vision for a blockchain-powered trade ecosystem – and how it’s turning this vision into reality – click here to view Josh Kroeker’s full presentation.