“SBI XDC Network APAC” established to enable efficient trade finance

SBI Holdings has completed the establishment of “SBI XDC Network APAC”, a joint venture in Japan, with TradeFinex Tech, the promoter of the XDC Network, an enterprise-focused blockchain for the purpose of enhancing efficiency in trade finance. The joint venture entity is owned 60% by SBI Holdings, and 40% of TradeFinex.

XDC Network is a community-driven platform established in 2017 specifically designed for trade finance and payments. It provides a smart contract system that facilitates global trade operations through the tokenization of real-world assets (RWAs) like bonds, tokenization of trade assets, and digitization of trade documents, on high-speed, highly secure, and low-cost blockchain.

Up to now, the SBI Group has been providing various services related to the XDC Network, including becoming Japan’s first exchange to start handling XDC tokens, through a partnership agreement with SBI VC Trade, a company providing crypto asset exchange services within the SBI Group.

Moving forward, the SBI Group will not only focus on services related to the XDC token, but also strive to expand the use cases of the XDC Network’s blockchain technology in global economic activities, particularly in the fields of trade finance and cross-border payments.

Furthermore, as the first project after the establishment of the joint venture, SBI XDC Network APAC has started a proof-of-concept (PoC) experiment that connects the XDC Network, the Corda platform provided by SBI R3 Japan and the Corda Bridge provided by IMPEL GLOBAL.

In this experiment, fiat payments generated by business-to-business transactions will be conducted in XDC via Corda and Corda Bridge. By utilizing a hybrid blockchain with both private and public characteristics, it is possible to provide a one-stop service that settles both private, such as information of transactions, and public, such as the transfer of value, at once. As a result, this offers an efficient and smooth payment method for cross-border transactions, including international trade, compared to conventional fiat currency transactions.

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