Software provider Surecomp has released an online app store for trade finance-focused fintech solutions.

The first four applications are now live on the digital marketplace, which is named SureStore. The store offers a route for banks and fintech firms to easily partner and integrate with each other: banks will be able to connect to a growing pool of apps in the store, and fintech firms will be able to market to Surecomp’s customer network of banks and corporates across 80 countries.

The four technology firms now live on the platform are Conpend, Wave, SemSoft and WalkMe, with additional apps from approved vendors expected to go live in the coming months.

Conpend is a Netherlands-based fintech firm that uses optical character recognition (OCR), robotic process automation and machine learning to digitise trade documents, flag deviations and conduct automatic document checking and sanctions screening. As such, the solution, called Trafinas, help banks reduce risk when processing trade finance transactions.

The firm recently announced it is working with Germany’s Commerzbank to integrate the system into its back office, with the bank claiming to be able to automate 80% of its “first line of defence” compliance checks of its trade finance processes by 2020.

Wave is an Israeli startup best known for completing the world’s first live blockchain trade transaction with Barclays in 2016, having gone through Barclays’ accelerator programme in 2015.

Its service allows for the digital exchange and management of shipping and trade-related documents, such as bills of lading and certificates through a blockchain-based network. Since late-2017 the firm has been conducting live pilots together with Israeli shipping company ZIM and other carriers.

SemSoft is a French big data company. Its solution, called LESTR, enables banks to automate and streamline regulatory compliance, including preventing money laundering and terrorism financing in global trade, while keeping a full transaction audit for future reference. It does so by aggregating, augmenting and cross-referencing trade finance information from multiple sources, such as shipping companies and insurers. The firm is already working with HSBC to implement the solution.

Finally, San Francisco-based WalkMe offers an adoption solution that will “help people who are new to Surecomp software get up-and-running quickly”, according to Gilad Friedman, VP for channel sales at WalkMe. The solution facilitates the onboarding process of new users and guides them on how to use Surecomp’s trade finance systems.

The launch of SureStore comes on the heels of Surecomp’s roll-out of APIsure earlier this month, an open API platform that enables fintech firms and other developers to build trade finance applications that integrate to the backend systems of banks and corporates.

Speaking to GTR at the time, Lyron Wahrmann, Surecomp’s head of digitisation, said the launch of APIsure and SureStore forms part of a move by the company to help banks embrace open banking and use a marketplace approach to offer better services to their customers.

The goal, he added, is to integrate with five to 10 fintech companies by the end of the year. Surecomp, too, is looking to build new apps on the platform, and banks will be able to do the same.

Other providers of banking systems have also been tapping into a growing interest in open banking. Finastra, for one, announced in June it was live with FusionFabric.cloud, an open marketplace for banks to search, try and buy applications by connecting to them through the cloud. Fintech companies, meanwhile, can easily build, deploy and operate cloud applications through open APIs to Finastra’s core banking infrastructure. A number of trade finance-focused fintech companies are already building apps on the platform, including Conpend and Coriolis Technologies.