On July 15th, Etisalat Digital announced a new nationwide blockchain trade finance platform called UAE Trade Connect (UTC). It was developed in partnership with First Abu Dhabi Bank (FAB) and Avanza Innovations. So far, eight banks have signed up, but the platform is open to others.
As with most trade finance blockchain initiatives, the aim is to digitize trade in the UAE. The initial scope is to address double financing and invoice fraud.
Blockchains by their nature prevent an invoice being double financed, but only if the entire sector uses that blockchain. In India, Monetago partnered with SWIFT and other organizations to try to ensure invoices don’t get double financed within India. INVIOU has a similar solution, but we’re not aware of a significant deployment as yet.
