AfE 2024
Attempts to digitalize trade processes have a chequered history, with several high-profile consortia and initiatives having failed to live up to expectations for various reasons.
The result is that complex global supply chains still typically outsource processes to third parties, particularly for cross-border imports, which is paper-intensive and time-consuming.
Tackling this is the great challenge for today’s trade-finance banks. The winner of this year’s award for the world's best trade finance bank, Bank of America, has created a new solution – Open Account Automation – which automates and digitises the procure-to-pay process from end to end, improving the time to match and approve an invoice from weeks to as little as seconds.
The buyer sets matching rules and parameters in CashPro and submits the purchase order, which flows through to the supplier. The supplier ships the goods and uploads the invoice to the Kanexa platform, which was developed from the liquidation of blockchain trade-finance venture Marco Polo Network.