On Monday, trade finance startup Tradeteq announced plans to launch TRADA Tokens, regulated security tokens backed by trade finance receivables. The fungible asset-backed tokens will be launched on the XDC public blockchain founded by XinFin, which focuses on trade and trade finance. In September last year, Tradeteq collaborated with XinFin to issue non-fungible tokens (NFTs) backed by trade finance assets.
“By investing in trade finance, which historically has been restricted to banks and larger institutional investors, private investors can now invest in the real economy,” said Nils Behling, CFO and co-founder at Tradeteq.
Earlier this month, the company launched Tradeteq Access Lite to enable buy-side investors to participate in the secondary market for trade finance assets. That offering does not use blockchain.
Tradeteq has existing solutions that digitize the trade finance process. It also founded the Trade Finance Distribution Initiative, which aims to standardize trade finance assets. Members include many of the world’s major trade finance banks in EMEA and Asia, such as HSBC, ING, and Standard Chartered. Additionally, several asset managers are involved, including big names such as Aegon and Allianz Global Investors, as well as trade finance specialists like Kimura.
At the start of 2021, Tradeteq raised a $9.4 million Series A funding round.
There are several enterprise blockchain trade finance networks such as Contour, Komgo, Marco Polo. But there are also a few existing trade finance token offerings on public blockchain. One of the best known is Centrifuge’s Tinlake, which includes trade finance amongst other assets, but currently has a modest $89 million in assets on the platform.
Meanwhile, in the last couple of months, there have been two regulated digital asset offerings in Russia backed by factored invoices, including from Russia’s largest bank Sber.
