Indian Giant Reliance Performs Blockchain-Powered Deal With HSBC

The Hindu Business Line, a major business news publication of India, has reported that HSBC’s Indian subsidiary and industrial conglomerate Reliance Industries (RIL) have successfully performed a blockchain-enabled trade finance transaction.

The Hindu Business Line additionally states that the blockchain-backed letter of credit (LoC) deal, reportedly the foremost of its kind in India, involved shipment by RIL to US client Tricon Energy.

The process satisfactorily diminished both the time and costs of handling documentation. The software platform represents a considerable improvement in global export market communications as all parties are brought together on a single platform.

The article also reveals that the trade solution has been created through the incorporation of blockchain in the electronic bill of lading (eBL) platform named Bolero. First presented in November 2016, the Bolero eBL platform permits for the issuance and organization of electronic bills of lading, as well as facilitates electronic transfers of goods titles from sellers to buyers in a transaction.

RIL’s joint CFO Srikanth Venkatachari opined that the latest blockchain deployment has established a considerable potential to minimize timeframe involved in administering export documentation from the “extent seven-ten days to less than a day.”

A few days before, a group of major global banks, including the UK-based major global banking and financial services institution HSBC, BNP Paribas and Standard Chartered, launched a blockchain platform for financing international trade. The platform, called eTrade Connect, reportedly reduces the time taken to approve trade credit applications from 36 hours to four hours.

In May of this year, the Financial Times reported that HSBC had completed the first blockchain-based global trade finance transaction. The transaction included a LoC for the USA-based Food and agricultural conglomerate Cargill.