POSCO International Puts Blockchain to Work in Trade Finance Pilot

POSCO International, the trading arm of South Korea's steel and industrial conglomerate POSCO Holdings, has successfully completed a pilot project tokenizing real trade receivables on the Avalanche blockchain. The pilot was conducted in partnership with Olea, a trade-finance firm backed by Standard Chartered's venture arm SC Ventures.

The pilot used actual capital from Olea to purchase the tokenized trade receivables, which were verified using AI-powered tools before being registered on Intain's network built on Avalanche's infrastructure. This process created an immutable ledger of ownership and transaction history.

This is not POSCO International's first foray into blockchain-based trade finance; they completed a separate proof-of-concept with LG CNS just last month, tokenizing trade receivables on the Injective blockchain using live trade data from their overseas subsidiaries. The global trade finance gap has been estimated at around $2.5 trillion by the Asian Development Bank.

The companies involved in this pilot plan to explore additional applications, including using stablecoins for cross-border transactions and building digital treasury tools.