Alfa-Bank, Commerzbank Pilot Cross-Border Payments on R3’s Marco Polo

Alfa-Bank and Novolipetsk Steel Company (NLMK), in cooperation with Commerzbank and Vesuvius GmbH, are piloting Russia-Germany cross-border payments on R3’s Marco Polo network.

Powered by R3’s Marco Polo Blockchain Global Trade Network

On Oct. 11, Alfa-Bank announced that it is launching a foreign trade finance pilot transaction, with the cooperation of NLMK, Commerzbank and Vesuvius GmbH using R3’s Corda-powered Marco Polo Network. In the announcement, Alfa-Bank described itself as Russia’s largest financial institution measured by total assets, total equity, deposit and loan portfolios.

The cross-border payment pilot aims to build a digital end-to-end trade finance and supply chain finance solution on a blockchain platform. Marco Polo network, which is a joint undertaking between technology firms TradeIX and R3, plans to offer a wide range of international trade finance solutions and integration into the global trade ecosystem. Head of Trade Finance at Alfa-Bank, Dina Merkulova, said:

“We launched our first distributed ledger technology in trade finance as early as 2017. Since then, corporate blockchain solutions have been considerably elaborated, and earned our clients’ confidence and proved their applicability to real business processes. Projects such as Marco Polo create added value for clients ensuring more international trade transparency and manageability thanks to integrated bank payment, finance and discount instruments.”

More banks joining Marco Polo Network

Cointelegraph reported in September that the Bank of America had joined R3’s Marco Polo Network to tackle trade finance challenges. The multinational investment bank joined the network to improve its international trade inefficiencies and deliver a better service to its customers. Geoff Brady, head of global trade at Bank of America, said at the time:

“Joining the Marco Polo Network supports our strategic objective of turning technology advances into trade solutions that address client needs. We look forward to exploring how the new technology can generate greater transparency for our clients throughout the transaction lifecycle, making traditionally paper-based, opaque processes easier and more efficient.”