Absa Corporate and Investment Bank (CIB) has become the first African bank to officially join Contour's digital trade finance network.

The pan-African bank's clients will now have access to Contour's digital letters of credit (L/Cs).

Digital benefits

Absa CIB is positioning itself at the forefront of digital developments by being a part of Contour's digital trade finance network. Many of Africa's trade transactions are manual and paper-based, which slows down trade growth and creates another layer of complexity and costs.

The bank's clients will now have access to Contour's digital L/C, which reduces the process of presenting documents from an average of 5-10 days to under 24 hours.

Sustainable trade finance growth

With a presence in 15 countries from Botswana to Zambia, the Johannesburg-based diversified financial services group is banking on innovation to drive sustainable growth according to a statement issued by Contour.

It says that digital developments can reduce barriers to accessing trade finance and collectively, fintechs and financial institutions can work together to help trade and trade finance grow in a sustainable manner.

This article represents the views of the author and not necessarily those of the ICC or Coastline Solutions.