NatWest, a UK-based retail and commercial bank owned by RBS, has joined Marco Polo, a trade finance initiative run by enterprise software firm R3 and trade finance technology specialist TradeIX.
NatWest will be joining other banking members including BNP Paribas, Commerzbank, ING, Standard Chartered, DNB, and OP Financial Group. More recently, Bangkok Bank and Natixis also joined the initiative.
“We are really excited to be joining the Marco Polo network and making an important step forward that will help reduce much of the time, expense and uncertainty in conducting international trade. We want to leverage distributed ledger technology for our clients and the best way to achieve this is through global collaboration with other financial institutions and leading technology providers,” Rowan Austin, Head of Trade & Working Capital Product at NatWest said.
Launched in September 2017, Marco Polo focuses on a trade finance platform built for global working capital needs that helps minimise the risks of making and receiving payments. It provides an infrastructure powered by R3’s Corda blockchain technology and open Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) purpose-built for the global trade ecosystem. It allows banks to offer participants and to easily integrate into trade orchestrations bringing in ERP, procure to pay, logistics, payment, insurance data, real-time into the transactions.
“The momentum around Marco Polo continues to build. We’re delighted to see NatWest join the growing network of financial institutions working together with R3 and TradeIX to bring much needed transparency and efficiency to trade finance.” said David E. Rutter, CEO of R3.
