The latest developments in financial products and investments from around the world.

UOB, Singapore
United Overseas Bank has partnered with Singapore’s Infocomm Media Development Authority (IMDA) on the latter’s digital trade financing pilot project. The programme uses electronic bills of lading to digitalise Singapore-China cross-border trade flows via the TradeTrust digital platform.

The electronic exchange of trade documents speeds up the shipping document presentation and title transfer process and cuts transaction costs for businesses, helping them to be more competitive.

The pilot scheme comes at a time when the pandemic and associated turmoil has added pressure to speed up trade flows and transactions, as well as embrace digital technology. Traditional trade flows typically involve manual handling of trade documents among sellers, buyers, carriers and banks across different geographies. A trade finance deal for a single cargo by sea could involve as many as 27 parties, requiring up to 36 original documents and 240 copies, UOB said in a statement.

Completed on 15 September 2021, the pilot comprised two digital letter of credit transactions involving electronic bill of lading transaction simulations. The pilot was conducted by UOB and its Shenzhen Branch in China for the bank’s corporate clients.

While not directly related to private banking and wealth management, the use of such digital technology shows how manual work has been upended not just by COVID-19 but by demand for faster speed, accuracy and reliability.

“The successful pilots with our Singapore and Shenzhen clients have reduced the processing turnaround time from a few days to within an hour and demonstrated the interoperability of TradeTrust for paperless workflows within the trade ecosystem,” So Lay Hua, head of group transaction banking, UOB, said.