Crédit Agricole CIB and ING transitioned tokenised documents of title from pilot to production on SECRO

First Crédit Agricole CIB’s transition

In October 2025, Crédit Agricole CIB commenced production use of SECRO’s proprietary blockchain technology to digitalise its transactional commodity operations. This partnership culminated early in 2026 with the bank’s first fully digital commercial transaction in the energy sector, involving a major global trader and financed by the bank.

The transaction featured a digital document of title issued by the vessel master while the ship was still at sea. The document was transferred in seconds to the shipper and securely held in Crédit Agricole’s SECRO digital vault.

This process enabled the bank to maintain secure control over the sole original document throughout the voyage, digitally endorsing it to the final consignee and transferring ownership only upon final settlement.

This inaugural transaction has set the stage for a steady stream of subsequent shipments, showing that the adoption of digital negotiable instruments at scale is a practical operational reality in the sophisticated Swiss commodity trading industry.

The network effect: ING joined the ecosystem

The industry’s confidence in SECRO was further reinforced by ING’s adoption of the platform in early 2026. Known for its leadership in digitisation within commodity finance, ING is expanding the use of SECRO’s tokenisation technology across its extensive client portfolio to optimise trade finance operations.

Notably, ING’s Swiss branch is exploring the application of SECRO’s Core platform technology to inventory financing. Once validated, this capability would establish ING as the first bank globally to tokenise documents of title across the full commodity finance value chain, from pre-shipment through transit to post-shipment.

With multiple launch customers poised to commence digital trading operations and other banks undergoing onboarding, SECRO’s network effect is accelerating. 

By integrating systemic financial institutions, SECRO has addressed the primary obstacle in digital trade: achieving end-to-end connectivity and interoperability among all stakeholders, including exporters, logistics providers, traders, and banks.

Legal certainty as the defining distinction

The choice of SECRO by these institutions hinges on a critical legal distinction. 

SECRO’s patented tokenisation technology creates digital documents of title that hold the same legal validity as paper documents under statutory law, unlike most platforms that rely on contractual agreements within closed networks.

SECRO’s European headquarters is based in Switzerland. Switzerland’s Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) Act provides one of the world’s most robust legal frameworks, granting digital ledger-based securities the same legal standing as traditional paper documents.

SECRO’s technology infrastructure is based in the Zurich region, ensuring data protection standards and a FINMA-compliant technology stack. 

The platform also complies with other digital trade frameworks, including the UK Electronic Trade Documents Act (ETDA), Singapore’s Electronic Transactions Act (ETA), and any other Model Law on Electronic Transferable Records (MLETR)-compliant legislation, such as those in New York, France, and the Netherlands.

Customers issuing digital documents through SECRO select the governing law at issuance, ensuring that legal certainty accompanies the document globally.

Setting the new industry standard

SECRO has built the universal reference for trade digitalisation. Its internationally patented tokenisation technology ensures compliance with the most advanced digital trade laws. 

The platform is approved by all major marine insurance carriers and recognised as a reliable platform by the International Chamber of Commerce. SECRO is certified to SOC 2 Type 2 and ISO 27001 standards.