Forgot your password?
Please enter your email & we will send your password to you:
My Account:
In late October 2023, blockchain-based trade finance platform Contour announced that it was ceasing operations after three years due to its inability to raise adequate funding from its bank shareholders.
According to GTR which reported on the matter after seeing a memo circulated by Contour to its members, the network informed that it would be discontinuing operations permanently at the end of November 2023 and that users would have until then to complete or migrate any outstanding transactions and download any required data before losing access to the platform.
Following the likes of We.trade and Marco Polo which had made inroads as blockchain trade finance networks to digitize trade but ultimately were forced to close, the demise of Contour is another very lamentable development. Offering his take on the foreboding climate facing others in the still crowded field of fintechs attempting to digitize documentary trade finance, industry consultant Pavel Andrle said of Contour ’s departure: “It is a strong reminder that being a pacesetter and receiving awards & recognition for technical innovations does not save any enterprise from the realities of the business race: If you do not scale up quickly enough and do not deliver good profits in timely fashion, you will not survive. No financial backing from investors is guaranteed to last endlessly. Rather to the contrary, it seems that patience is a scare commodity in the current uncertain world.”
“It seems to me that the idea that one or a few companies will develop a global solution and bear most of the costs and risks might be naïve”, added Andrle. “Probably the risks and costs of building the new digital environment would have to be shared more equally among multiple players.”