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Financial services giant Standard Chartered has successfully completed its first blockchain-based deep-tier supply chain financing transaction with China-based supply finance firm Linklogis. The financing was intended for upstream suppliers of Digital Guangdong, according to a press release.
Digital Guangdong is a joint venture between Tencent, China Unicom, China Telecom, and China Mobile. It has developed more than 700 digital governmental services and applications and processed over 200 million transactions.
As per the announcement, the latest transaction utilized Linklogs’ platform “WeQChain,” which is based on Tencent’s blockchain technology.
One of the goals was to enhance transparency, allowing larger suppliers greater visibility over their supply chain. The second aim was to improve credit access, enabling small- and medium-sized enterprise (SME) suppliers to enjoy cheaper credit since there is lower risk as the bank already knows the buyer has approved the invoice.
“As a FinTech company, we believe closer collaboration with leading financial institutions like Standard Chartered will allow us to build innovative technological applications to solve the fundamental financing problems faced by SMEs,” Charles Song, Linklogis Chairman and CEO, said.
Xie Wen, the head of commercial banking in China at Standard Chartered, also noted that the latest move will enable their clients to remain competitive.
“Our clients today have to compete not just on their individual strength, but also on the combined strength of their ecosystems… Through our cooperation with Linklogis, and by leveraging blockchain technology, we will be able to offer our clients a distinct service to empower their ecosystems,” Wen said.
It can be recalled that Standard Chartered signed a memorandum of understanding with Linklogis last February to leverage the latter's blockchain-enabled platform to enhance its supply chain financing proposition and deepen client relationship in China.
