UAE Trade Connect’s digital trade platform goes live with 7 banks

UAE Trade Connect’s digital trade platform goes live with 7 banks

UAE Trade Connect (UTC), a new nationwide blockchain platform, has officially gone live on Monday to help financial institutions combat fraud and duplication.Co-created by Etisalat Digital, seven leading UAE banks and Avanza Innovations, the idea was first proposed by First Abu Dhabi Bank to tackle key issues in the trade finance space. The steering committee for the platform consists of the Central Bank of the UAE, Commercial Bank International (CBI), Commercial Bank of Dubai (CBD), Emirates NBD, First Abu Dhabi Bank (FAB), Mashreq Bank, National Bank of Fujairah (NBF), and RAKBANK.Speaking at a webinar during the launch event, Zulqarnain Javaid, CEO of UTC, explained that six months of testing went into the project, and that the UTC is going to be a “game changer for the trade finance space.”“The idea came about two years ago,” he said. “We pulled together the consortium in the middle of 2019, and began testing towards the end of 2020. The Central Bank's fintech office also took an interest in the concept very early on. This programme was considered to be such an important part of digitisation that even during the first year of the Covid-19 pandemic, all of the banks committed their IT resources