Accenture, a professional services firm, and TradeIX, a blockchain startup in global trade finance, have teamed up to become an onboarding partner for the Marco Polo Network, according to reports.
Accenture Ventures also made an undisclosed investment in TradeIX, and the company will help the blockchain startup to create new cases that go beyond mere banking for sellers and buyers within the sphere of trade finance.
“As we talked to more corporates, it became apparent there was more that we could be doing,” said Robert Barnes, CEO and co-founder of TradeIX on Tuesday (Dec. 17). “We’re looking to enhance the data between buyer and seller … including inventory information, invoice and purchase orders, advance and shipping orders and working with contracts on the chain.”
The Marco Polo network will launch in 2020, and Accenture is a strategic partner to help with the integration of blockchain into its legacy systems.
“We’re processing many of these transactions already, leading the way with [artificial intelligence] AI, analytics and automation to get to a more streamlined processing,” said Melanie Cutlan, managing director of blockchain services for Accenture Operations. “With [distributed ledger technology] DLT, Accenture has been focused on financial services infrastructure, supply chain and digital identity — this hits the core of all three of those.”
TradeIX also recently said that the Marco Polo network just finished its biggest open-account trade finance trial yet, with more than 70 participating organizations. The network has been busy and added numerous companies from finance and ancillary industries, like Daimler, Mastercard and Bank of America. Last month, Bank of New York Mellon was the 28th bank to join.
Sweden’s central bank recently asked Accenture to help with the development of its e-krona pilot for digital currency, earlier this month. Accenture also helped with the technology for a test between Canadian central banks and Singapore, on a cross-border payments initiative that will operate with blockchain, as well as cryptocurrencies.
