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Blockchain - Integrating new technologies in smart ways

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Recent media reports suggest a new cryptocurrency legislation for safe cryptocurrency exchange could be introduced in the EU countries. By this new legislation, under the new guidelines, Bitcoin and other digital currencies will be named monetary instruments all through Europe. This means legal cryptocurrency exchange will be more transparent than ever. Moreover, it is said that this new legislation will encourage the innovation associated to crypto and blockchains sector.

One area looking to new innovation using the blockchain is the cross-border money movement in multi-commodity trading business, which is very complex. There are a number of stakeholders, intermediaries and banks operating together to make deals happen. The supply chain deals are massive in value and happen very frequently.

“Many traditional banks have recently exited trade finance sector because it's simply too risky for them,” said Ali Amirliravi, CEO of LGR Global. “The banks that stay have no incentive to optimize the inefficient processes, that’s because as the companies are working to gather up all the required documentation and address the compliance needs, the banks are sitting back and charging interest - they actually don’t care how long it takes, it’s the trading companies that have to pay the extra fees.

"It gets even worse in what we call the 'Silk Road Countries'- the areas between Europe, Central Asia and China. Here you really see big differences within the supply chains and they also have to deal with large number of different currencies. You’ve got some companies that are using all manual, paper based processes and others that are moving into digital - there’s no standardization and that’s a real problem."

Ali Amirliravi’s  LGR Global is a member of the Silk Road Chamber of International Commerce - an international association with the aim of increasing trade amongst members and states.

“These issues outlined are brought up frequently at the high-level meetings of the chamber of commerce,” said  Amirliravi . “The influence of my own experience in the industry mixed with the stories of other stakeholders really pushed me to start to create end-to-end digital system. We are building a better way to do things, one that is faster, cheaper and more transparent for all parties involved. “

“It comes down to integrating new technologies in smart ways. Take my company for example, LGR Global, when it comes to money movement, we are focused on 3 things: speed, cost & transparency. To address these issues, we use leading technologies such as  blockchain, digital currencies, and general digitization to optimize the existing processes.

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It's quite clear the impact that new technologies can have on things like speed and transparency, but when I say it’s important to integrate the technologies in a smart way that’s important because you always have to keep your customer in mind - the last thing we would want to do is introduce a system that actually confuses our users and makes his or her job more complicated. So on one hand, the solution to these problems is found in new technology, but on the other hand, it’s about creating a user experience that is simple to use and interact with and integrates seamlessly into the existing systems. So it’s a bit of a balancing act between technology and user experience, that’s where the solution is going to be created.

When it comes to the broader topic of supply chain finance, what we see is the need for improved digitalization and automation of the processes and mechanisms that exist throughout the product lifecycle. In the multi-commodity trading industry, there are so many different stakeholders, middlemen, banks, etc. and each of them have their own way of doing this - there is an overall lack of standardization, particularly in the Silk Road Area. The lack of standardization leads to confusion in compliance requirements, trade documents, letters of credit, etc., and this means delays and increased costs for all parties. Furthermore, we have the huge issue of fraud, which you have to expect when you are dealing with such disparity in the quality of processes and reporting. The solution here is again to use technology and digitalize and automate as many of these processes as possible - it should be the goal to reduce risks and take human error out of the equation.

And here is the really exciting thing about bringing digitalization and standardization to supply chain finance: not only is this going to make doing business much more straightforward for the companies themselves, this increased transparency and optimization will also make the companies much more attractive to outside investors. It’s a win-win for everyone involved here.”

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EU Reporter publishes articles from a variety of outside sources which express a wide range of viewpoints. The positions taken in these articles are not necessarily those of EU Reporter.

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