London-headquartered multinational banking and financial services firm Standard Chartered has signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with Tencent-backed Chinese fintech firm Linklogis. The agreement, reported by financial technology news site Finextra on Feb. 12, will allow Standard Chartered to use Linklogis’ blockchain-powered supply chain financing platform.
Linklogis, based in Shenzhen, China, is a business to business supply chain financing solutions provider. As well as sealing a series of investments from high-profile backers that include Tencent and Singapore’s Government Investment Corporation, the firm also partnered with Tencent’s fintech unit to launch a financial blockchain platform “TrustSQL” in April 2017.
Standard Chartered will reportedly use Linklogis’ supply chain financing blockchain platform to improve business financing opportunities and consolidate its network and client relationships in China.
The blockchain-powered platform is reported to improve supply chain transparency for large buyers, as well as offer smaller enterprises more efficient and affordable access to credit.
Aside from use of the blockchain platform, the MoU also reportedly outlines further areas for cooperation between Standard Chartered and Linklogis. These areas are said to include expediting the bank’s onboarding of new clients by digitizing administration processes and improving risk management systems by means of Linklogis’ data and analytics capabilities.
For Linklogis, the MoU is poised to benefit the firm by offering access to Standard Chartered’s global network and creating an opportunity for the provision of its solutions to firms that import into and export out of China.
As recently reported, Standard Chartered Singapore unit completed its first blockchain-powered trade finance deal this January, using a solution developed by startup Distributed Ledger Technologies.
Standard Chartered is also one of a dozen major banks — among them HSBC and BNP Paribas — to have jointly developed and launched a blockchain trade finance platform dubbed “eTrade Connect” in fall 2018.
In October 2018, the bank announced it was working on a pilot for bank guarantees that would be underpinned by blockchain consortium R3’s Corda blockchain technology.
