(7 February 2020 – Singapore) DBS has executed the first end-to-end digital trade financing settlement on Singapore's new Networked Trade Platform (NTP).
The group successfully carried out the transaction with car manufacturer Audi and its local distributor Premium Automobiles on an S$3.5 million letter of credit (LC).
The NTP is a trade information management platform designed to digitise and simplify trade, supply chains and trade financing launched in Q3 2019. DBS received and began processing the eApplications in real time, slashing the trade financing processing time from a week to less than a single business day.
The first transaction is a critical step towards transforming documentary trade, of which domestic LCs constitute up to S$150 billion of Singapore’s trade flows. The NTP is part of a broader concerted effort by the Singapore government to drive an industry-wide digital transformation to build a trade and logistics digital ecosystem that connects businesses, community systems and platforms and government systems.
“With digitalisation, trade information is increasingly democratised and interoperability between trade platforms is enhanced, enabling companies around the world to trade more efficiently and seamlessly with each other” stated DBS Group Head, Trade Product Management, Sriram Muthukrishnan.
“Digitalising a traditionally paper-centric trade ecosystem requires support from like-minded industry partners who embrace technology and change” said Networked Trade Platform Office (NTPO) Director, Serene Ho.