Standard Chartered Bank partners with Contour, conducts Blockchain knowledge-sharing session for Nepal Rastra Bank

KATHMANDU, June 6: Standard Chartered Bank Nepal Ltd (SCBNL) in partnership with Contour, a digital trade finance network, arranged a Blockchain knowledge sharing session for Nepal Rastra Bank on 2 June 2023. During the programme, the benefits of Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT), its use cases and how it can help trade finance by removing the inefficiencies of the current system were discussed. 

Distributed Ledger Technologies (DLT) are transforming global trade into highly organised networks to help improve efficiency and reduce costs in trade financing. The use of DLT for trade transforms the letter of credit process by managing the entire end-to-end process in a collaborative workflow, giving buyers and sellers instant access and real-time visibility of the transaction, all on one connected platform. The interactions were extremely fruitful and helped brainstorm the potential benefits of DLT for Nepal that could contribute to improving the country’s trade flow. 

Contour was formed by leading trade banks and industry partners with a global footprint (live in 20 banks across 50+ countries) to solve longstanding inefficiencies in global trade. Contour transforms trade finance products, such as letters of credit, using decentralised technology to bring together the world's banks, corporates and logistics partners, onto a common digital, trusted network, in real-time. 

Joshua Kroeker, Chief Product Officer of Contour gave a technical overview of DLT and explained how Contour’s multi-bank platform leverages on Distributed Ledger Technology (R3 Corda) to transform the client journeys for import and export L/C transactions. This was followed by a demo of Contour’s platform. 

Anirban Ghosh Dastidar, CEO of Standard Chartered Bank Nepal Ltd (SCBNL), shared that Standard Chartered Bank being one of the leading banks in the world in implementing various use cases of Blockchain including Trade finance, it was his pleasure in leading this initiative in Nepal.

Govind Prasad Nagila, Director of Foreign Exchange Management ended the meeting by thanking all the participants from Nepal Ratra Bank and Standard Chartered Bank and Contour for organising the event. The event was followed by lunch and a networking session.