Should Saudi be considered a first port of call when it comes to digitisation?

Events / 14-10-21 / Share Link

The previous 18 months have proved truly transformative in the advancement of trade digitisation, with exporters and banks alike looking for new solutions amid a ‘flight to digital’ in the face of the often arduous process of signing and reviewing trade documentation. There are however many barriers and bottlenecks; regulation of digital markets in the region remains underdeveloped, often covered by laws not originally intended for the digital era, whilst Saudi Arabia hasn’t yet adopted the UNCITRAL Model Law on Electronic Transferable Records, allowing use of digital versions of certain trade documentation.

Sean Bowey, (Head of Products, Global Trade & Receivable Finance, SABB), Huny Garg (Executive Director & Country Head, KSA & Bahrain, SWIFT) Syed Hassan Javed (Head of Trade Finance, Gulf International Bank), Salah Idris (Business Development Director, TradeAssets), Aneta Klosek (Director, Global Trade Compliance Market Planning, Accuity) and Jamil Abolzelof, (Acting Chief Solutions Officer, Tabadul) examined the efforts to extend digitisation initiatives into the wider ecosystem, incorporating ports, logistics providers and other parts of the supply chain, as well as looking at the importance of specific collaborations between banks, digital platforms and regulators in digitising processes. The conversation also focused on the virtuous relationship between trade digitisation and ongoing discussions around sustainability and ESG, another field in which technological innovation is also seen as key.