London, UK, 20 February 2023 – Mercore, the global trade focused fintech group, today announced that it has executed a trade finance transaction utilising an electronic payment undertaking (ePU) structure (in digital bill of exchange format) working with one of its SME clients, Abercore, a UK based sugar trader and advisory firm.
This pilot transaction by Mercore was for an amount of circa €118k and is the first in a series of ‘digital bills of exchange’ transactions with greater size and frequency. The underlying transaction involved the sourcing of sugar by Abercore from Pantaleon in Nicaragua for onward supply to a UK based food manufacturer.
Mercore completed the financing leveraging the International Trade & Forfaiting Association’s (ITFA) Digital Negotiable Instruments (DNI) Initiative’s digital bill of exchange text and dDOC specification, together with execution via trace:original (Enigio´s solution for digital original documents).
"This is a ground breaking development and the beginning of what will become the norm for trade transactions in the future" - Chris Southworth, Secretary General of the International Chamber of Commerce (United Kingdom)
"The use of the ITFA ePU by Mercore and their client, Abercore, demonstrates the scalability and commercial value of digital negotiable instruments" - Sean Edwards, Chair of the International Trade & Forfaiting Association