(21 April 2023 – India) Citi India’s treasury and trade solutions business has completed Contour’s first domestic end to end blockchain enabled letter of credit (LC) transaction in the South Asian country. The transaction is a first for industrials manufacturer Cummins (client) and Citi India on the new platform and a part of the Bank's trade digitisation efforts.
Contour is a global digital trade finance network, powered by blockchain technology, that enables multiple parties including banks, corporates, and logistic partners to collaborate seamlessly and securely in real time on a single platform. Citi is a founding member bank of Contour.
Contour’s decentralised global trade finance network has demonstrated that LC processing time can be reduced by up to 90 percent.
Typically, document presentation takes between 5 to 10 days for LC, but for Cummins, it took only three hours. This marks the first entirely domestic blockchain-based LC transaction completed on Contour in India.
'We are a technology driven company and our key priority is to digitize our processes. We are happy that Contour and Citi worked with us to launch the first blockchain enabled LC transaction in India. We believe that by digitizing our processes we are able to drive efficiency across the value chain and is a win-win solution for stakeholders,' said Cummins Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, Ajay Patil.