ICC Digital Library

Documentary Credit World

Documentary Credit World (DCW) - September 2023 Vol. 27 No.8 section - Updates

Citi Token Services for Trade Finance Introduced

On 18 September 2023, Citi Treasury and Trade Solutions announced creation of Citi Token Services for trade finance. The service uses blockchain and smart contract technologies to deliver digital asset solutions for institutional clients. The service will integrate tokenized deposits and smart contracts into the bank’s global network to enhance its trade finance capabilities.

In announcing its innovation, Citi referenced its successful pilot with Maersk and a canal authority to digitize a solution that serves the same purpose as bank guarantees and letters of credit. The collaborative effort was said to have “demonstrated programmable transfer of tokenized deposits that provided instant payments to service providers via smart contracts.” Citi expects the technology used to/reduce transaction processing times from days to minutes.