Global trade finance is finally approaching a decisive digital inflection point as three long-missing elements — legal frameworks, digital standards, and tokenisation pilots — begin to align.
According to Hari Janakiraman, head of industry and innovation, transaction banking at ANZ, the convergence of these forces is transforming digital trade from a costly, fragmented experiment into a scalable reality.
“The biggest development when it comes to enabling trade digitisation in the region is adoption of legal frameworks,” said Melbourne-based Janakiraman (pictured), speaking to FinanceAsia in an exclusive interview.
“Historically, it has been costly because you needed to build your own ecosystem and contracts for each transaction. With legal frameworks coming into place and digital standards being published, it now comes as a ready-made package.”
He said the shift marks the moment when digital trade ceases to rely solely on private infrastructure and becomes supported by “the rule of the land.” That foundation allows banks and corporates to digitise processes that were once bound to paper and manual verification.
Singapore, the UK, and France have already adopted laws modelled on the UNCITRAL Model Law on Electronic Transferable Records (MLETR), giving digital bills of lading and promissory notes legal equivalence to paper documents. According to the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC), more than a dozen jurisdictions have now enacted or are in the process of enacting MLETR-style legislation — a change the World Economic Forum estimates could unlock more than $40 billion in global trade growth by 2026.
“Markets like Singapore and Hong Kong are well positioned to lead because of the progress they have made on legal and regulatory readiness,” Janakiraman added. “It’s a good first step that makes digital trade more accessible for everyone, not just large multinationals.”
Next phase of digital trade
While legal frameworks provide the foundation, Janakiraman said interoperability will determine whether digital trade scales globally. “You’re never going to have, in my view, one digital platform which is going to rule the world. So, you need to have standards so that the platforms become interoperable,” he said.
He described today’s trade platforms as “digital islands,” where banks, logistics firms and corporates have built parallel systems that don’t talk to one another. “What we need is a shift toward open, standardised protocols that allow systems to communicate — so that trade data, compliance information and payments can move seamlessly,” he said.
Industry bodies such as the ICC Digital Standards Initiative, APEC, and the World Trade Organisation have each launched efforts to harmonise technical standards for electronic trade documents and cross-border data sharing. The ICC, for instance, is developing Uniform Rules for Digital Trade Transactions (URDTT) to support interoperability between banks, corporates, and fintech platforms.
Janakiraman said these developments are critical because many governments are digitising domestic trade systems, but true efficiency comes only when those systems connect across borders. “It’s like you have a sentence, but a lot of blanks in the sentence — and they’re starting to fill one of those blanks,” he said.
Janakiraman believes that the next frontier in trade digitisation lies in tokenisation.
He also highlighted the need for robust cybersecurity and data governance frameworks to accompany that connectivity. “If someone hacks into a data stream, that’s a very different risk,” he noted. “We must make sure the systems are reliable and secure, because trade data has regulatory and financial consequences if compromised.”
Janakiraman said recent pilots, such as the Singapore Trade Data Exchange (SGTraDex), show how collaboration between government, logistics firms and banks can reduce data friction and improve trust. “When these standards and platforms come together, it’s not about one entity dominating, it’s about everyone playing their role,” he said.
New liquidity in trade, tokenisation
Janakiraman believes that the next frontier in trade digitisation lies in tokenisation — turning trade assets such as invoices or payables into digital tokens that can be traded, financed, or settled instantly.
“What I think probably will happen in the trade side first is the secondary market,” he said. “Those opportunities are a lot more immediate, as opposed to the primary trade being fully digitised.”
Tokenisation, he explained, will help bridge financing gaps for small and mid-sized exporters by unlocking working capital earlier in the trade cycle. “They predominantly do two things. One is faster immediate payment, and it can help with delivery versus payment,” he said.
ANZ is already testing this through Project Acacia, an initiative led by the Reserve Bank of Australia exploring tokenised trade payables and settlement using wholesale central bank digital currency (wCBDC). “Project Acacia’s tokenised trade payables use case aims to address working capital and cash flow challenges faced by suppliers,” Janakiraman said, noting that such pilots show how tokenisation can integrate liquidity management with real-time settlement.
Trade finance, long reliant on physical documentation and manual checks, appears closer than ever to a paperless future.
Still, he cautioned that technology alone cannot guarantee benefits for all parties. “If you are from an exporter’s perspective, I had to tell them that’s not necessarily going to happen because you have digitised your trade,” he said. “Faster payments will come in some cases, but not in all cases.”
For tokenisation to achieve scale, Janakiraman said clear regulatory guidance will be essential. “Coming from a regulated institution, having clear regulations… is one,” he said, noting that central banks and regulators need to provide clarity on how digital trade assets and tokenised instruments are treated for compliance and risk.
He added that as the technology matures, tokenisation could help trade assets become a recognised investible class. “When that happens, liquidity will expand beyond banks to asset managers and investors, creating a true secondary market for trade finance,” he said.
Industry experts share that optimism. The Bank for International Settlements and Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) have been running tokenisation pilots under Project Guardian, testing programmable money and asset tokenisation use cases for cross-border trade and settlement. These efforts, Janakiraman said, are steps toward building an ecosystem where digitised documents, interoperable systems, and regulated digital assets function as one.
Trade finance, long reliant on physical documentation and manual checks, appears closer than ever to a paperless future. With legal adoption expanding, interoperability standards advancing, and tokenisation pilots demonstrating real-world value, Janakiraman said the next phase is about execution at scale.
“The pieces are starting to come together,” he said. “The challenge now is to make sure the ecosystem connects them in a way that works for everyone.”
