XDC Network aims to bring trade finance on-chain

XDC Network announced it is focusing on building on-chain trade finance infrastructure to address inefficiencies in the global market. The company noted that the current market suffers from structural issues, including a reliance on paper documents and multiple intermediaries that can delay transaction settlements for days. It also highlighted that short-term financing rates for small and medium-sized enterprises can reach as high as 30% annually. XDC claims that by tokenizing trade-related assets like invoices and bills of lading (B/L), it can enable on-chain verification of transaction histories and collateral status. This, the company argues, could reduce fraud risk and lower financing costs to as low as 10% per year. The network also projected that trade finance, an estimated $15 trillion market, will become a key growth driver for the blockchain-based real-world asset (RWA) sector. The current value of on-chain trade finance is reportedly around $700 million. Last year, XDC acquired Contour Network, a trade finance platform with over 100 participating financial institutions, including HSBC, Citi, and Standard Chartered. The company added that it plans to expand its business by integrating a stablecoin payment infrastructure in the future.