Standard Chartered Conducts First Blockchain Trade in Bangladesh

Standard Chartered PLC,  a British multinational banking and financial services company headquartered in London, England, has successfully leveraged blockchain technology to conduct Bangladesh’s first blockchain trade transaction, according to Newage on August 16. 

The Standard Chartered bank issued a Letter of Credit (LC) for the trade between garment exporter Viyellatex Ltd and Viyellatex Spinning on the Contour blockchain network. LC is a letter from a bank guaranteeing that a buyer's payment to a seller will be received on time and for the correct amount. 

The entire transaction was reportedly paperless and completed digitally through Contour’s network. Contour’s blockchain network builds on R3’s Corda blockchain and enables all participants to leverage the network to create and renew trade data in real-time for global distributed digital trading. It added that:

“Contour improves data transparency, removes administration costs and reduces friction in global trade: all of this leading to an overall increase in efficiency and reduction in costs for all parties.”

Viyellatex Group chairman and CEO KM Rezaul Hasanat said:

‘Blockchain technology will certainly increase trading efficiency and reduce turnaround time of the LC process. Hence, we are very happy and proud to collaborate with Standard Chartered Bank and become a part of the first trade transaction in Bangladesh using the revolutionary blockchain technology.”

As Cointelegraph previously reported, German banking and tech giants have utilized Corda’s platform to complete a 100,000 euro money market security transaction.