Hong Kong’s Monetary Authority and its de facto central bank will launch a blockchain-backed trade finance platform.

Financial Times writes that the platform was designed by OneConnect, Ping An Group’s financial technology company.

According to the preliminary data, 21 banks are expected to join the platform, including HSBC and Standard Chartered.

The technology is expected to shake up trade finance by slashing the amount of documentation and manpower needed to process transactions. It will also reduce the amount of time needed for some transactions.


According to Jessica Tan, Ping An’s deputy chief executive, small companies around the world are regularly denied access to banking services due to the increasing costs of due diligence required to sign up new clients, while OneConnect’s technologies are able to extract a wide range of company data, at a low cost, to evaluate potential customers. This will allow the trade finance platform to take on more small businesses.

Fraud will also be easier to detect with blockchain technologies. Companies often request more financing from banks than needed to fund the trade, and blockchain makes the process more transparent.

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