Lloyds Bank Commercial Banking, traditionally one of the ‘Big Four’ clearing banks revealed in a press release Wednesday that it has partnered with Komgo, a startup providing a blockchain-based solution for international commodity trade finance.
Per the announcement, Lloyds Bank is adopting Komgo’s blockchain-powered platform in a bid to solve some of the most pressing problems facing its international commodity trade business.
For instance, Gwynne Master, Managing Director for Lloyds Bank Commercial Banking explained that the current international trade system is ‘cumbersome’ and ‘time-consuming’, with the process of trading a single commodity taking up to 100 days in some cases.
The involvement of multiple players, paperwork and risks were also listed by the official as the other reasons why it is difficult to achieve faster turnaround times for their clients.
However, he subsequently expressed confidence that adopting Komgo’s platform means that Lloyds Bank can finally get over those challenges.
“Our partnership with komgo helps us tackle these challenges. We’re working together to shorten the time it takes our corporate clients to trade internationally by significantly streamlining and digitising the process,” Gwynne said in the release.
Interestingly, Lloyds Bank’s involvement with blockchain technology adds the U.K bank to the growing list of banking institutions who are adopting the innovation to solve one pain point or the other.
Coinfomania reported yesterday that the National Bank of Fujairah (NBF) adopted Ripple’s blockchain network to enable faster settlement of cross-border transactions. In similar fashion, the Bank of America last week joined the Marco Polo blockchain-based trade network, to boost its trade activities.
