R3 Completes Trade Finance Blockchain Trial With More Than 70 Organizations

R3 has closed what it’s calling the largest open-account trade finance trial ever conducted on its Corda platform.

This trial included more than 70 organizations from more than 25 countries. Upwards of 340 participants from those organizations were involved and came out from sectors like financial services, information technology, telecommunications, logistics, the maritime industry, real estate, hospitality and the automotive industry.

The trial tested working capital applications developed by TradeIX and focused on the receivables finance product on Marco Polo’s platform, TradeIX announced Thursday. Accounts receivables financing, also called factoring, is where a business sells account receivables to a third party at a discount in return for immediate cash payment.

The aim of the product is to increase connectivity and efficiency while decreasing onboarding costs. Marc Polo claims that more than 700 funding requests were completed in the trial with user training only requiring a day of participants time on average.

Founded by blockchain companies R3 and TradeIX, Marco Polo aims to create real-time settlements and transparency in trading relationships. In September, Bank of America, Mastercard and automaker Daimler joined the network. It executed its first Russia-Germany transactions in October.

In November, Bank of New York Mellon became the 28th bank to join the network because of how R3’s platform is tailored for open account financing, the bank’s global head of trade finance Joon Kim said. (In open account transactions, the goods are shipped and delivered before payment is due; with letter-of-credit financing, the bank guarantees a buyer’s payment ahead of time).

Banks involved in this month’s trial included Dutch bank ABN AMRO, Mexican bank Banorte, Boston-based Citizens Bank, Frankfurt-based Commerzbank, Hong-Kong based Bank of East Asia and the Saudi British Bank. Other corporations involved included BMW, Saudi Arabia-based International Islamic Trade Finance Corporation, financial services institute SüdFactoring (subsidiary of German bank Landesbank Baden-Württemberg), Tokyo-based trading company Sumitomo Corporation, SBI Holdings (investment arm of Japanese financial giant SBI Group) and R3 Corda Japanese venture SBI R3 Japan.