Report launch: Trade digitisation’s bumpy road to interoperability - Trade Treasury Payments

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Report launch: Trade digitisation’s bumpy road to interoperability

At a recent closed-door roundtable, convened by Trade Treasury Payments and the ICC Digital Standards Initiative (DSI), leading banks, fintechs, corporates and trade tech providers met to examine one of the most persistent challenges in digital trade: interoperability.

The resulting paper, Trade digitisation’s bumpy road to interoperability, reveals a tension at the heart of the industry’s digital transformation. Despite rapid progress in document digitalisation and cloud-based workflows, systems too often remain siloed, operating as “digital islands” rather than as a coherent trade ecosystem. Technical pilots abound, but scale remains elusive.

Participants were clear that the problem isn’t a lack of technology. Tools like OCR and AI are already helping institutions automate document ingestion, compliance screening, and fraud detection. One major bank reported processing trade finance transactions entirely digitally in its market for the first time. But as one attendee put it, OCR is “just automating our ability to fix the problems created by paper.” These technologies are, by nature, interim solutions—bridging legacy workflows rather than replacing them. Accuracy issues and unstructured formats continue to limit their effectiveness.

Instead, the discussion pointed to a more foundational challenge: the absence of shared data standards and common digital frameworks. The ICC DSI’s Key Trade Documents and Data Elements (KTDDE) initiative was cited as a step in the right direction, but widespread adoption is needed. Participants agreed that interoperability will only be possible when systems not only connect, but also interpret data consistently and follow aligned procedures—something that goes beyond file formats and enters the realm of semantics, regulation, and process harmonisation.

Corporates noted that the problem is not too little innovation, but too much of it in disconnected silos. Managing multiple portals—one for logistics, another for financing, yet another for document compliance—has created inefficiencies, not solved them. A clear message emerged: trade needs to happen through existing environments, not in standalone apps. ERP integration was a recurring theme. When trade finance can be embedded directly into platforms like SAP or Oracle, processes become faster, less error-prone, and easier to scale. Banks echoed this, emphasising that digital trade services must be accessible through client systems, not imposed via additional interfaces.

Participants from across sectors acknowledged that no single institution can deliver interoperability alone. Fintechs that once sought to become the central digital trade platform are now repositioning themselves as integration partners, working to plug into banks, corporates, and infrastructure providers through open APIs. This shift reflects a broader maturation in the market. Interoperability, as one participant put it, is now a “team sport.”

There was a shared recognition that the building blocks are falling into place. Digital standards are emerging, enabling legislation is progressing, and pilots continue to demonstrate real-world efficiency and cost gains. But the final mile—broad adoption, system alignment, legal recognition—remains the hardest. And it won’t be solved by technology alone. What’s needed is alignment: of data models, of legal frameworks, of commercial incentives.

In the end, participants agreed that trade will only become truly digital when platforms work together in service of users, not themselves. That means a shift in mindset as much as in software. Until then, the road to interoperability will remain, as the paper notes, a bumpy one.

The roundtable was co-organised by Deepesh Patel (Trade Treasury Payments), Pamela Mar (ICC DSI and member of TTP’s Editorial Board), and Oswald Kuyler (Asian Development Bank and TTP Global Advisory Panel member). The report was written by Carter Hoffman.

Roundtable participants included representatives from:

CargoX, C4DTI, Complidata, Enigio, ETR Digital, Finastra, ICC DSI, ITFA, Lloyds Bank, Matalan, Prima Trade, Secro, SemFi by HSBC, and Trade Treasury Payments (TTP).

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