Marco Polo Onboards Three New Members to Its Trade Finance Network

Distributed ledger technology (DLT)-based trade finance network Marco Polo has onboarded three new members for piloting and evaluating purposes, Cointelegraph auf Deutsch reports on April 26.

Marco Polo Network is a joint undertaking with tech firm TradeIX, enterprise software company R3, and other 20 international financial institutions. The initiative provides a multi-asset class platform that offers broker dealer services, multi currency transactions, including equities, options, futures, and other related services.

In an official announcement, the company revealed that it was joined by financial services provider for the Bavarian and German economies, BayernLB, one of the leading banks in the German city of Frankfurt, Helaba, and the largest back office service provider within the Savings Banks Finance Group, S-Servicepartner.

Commenting on the cooperation, Florian Seitz, Head of Trade & Export Finance, BayernLB reportedly said that “joining the Marco Polo Network considerably enhances our range of digital solutions to the benefit of our customers. It allows us to settle trade finance transactions securely and transparently.”

Yesterday, Cointelegraph reported that major Japanese bank, Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation (SMBC), will leverage R3’s Marco Polo blockchain network for trade finance. The product successfully conducted its first trade finance operations in late March, an operation involving two German firms and local bank Commerzbank.

In March, Switzerland's principal stock exchange, SIX Swiss Exchange, chose to use blockchain consortium R3’s Corda Enterprise platform for its blockchain-based digital exchange. In February, the Wall Street Blockchain Alliance joined blockchain consortium R3 to develop applications and solutions on their Corda platform.