Marco Polo

Basics

• Trade finance blockchain network founded by R3 and TradeIX.
• A consortium working to bring efficiencies to international trade using blockchain technology.
• Built on R3’s Corda blockchain platform
• "In August 2019, Marco Polo said it had taken another step toward launching a live product. The 25-plus member group indicated at the time that a successful pilot had allowed a third party in a trade to trigger a payment to a supplier in real-time at the moment the goods are on their way to their destination. That milestone came after the network’s first live transactions in trials back in March."

Members

• Mastercard; Joined (9-2019) the consortium, saying that its business-to-business global trade unit, Mastercard Track, will provide an access point to Marco Polo’s working capital finance platform.
• Bank of America; "According to an announcement emailed (19-9-2019) to CoinDesk Thursday, the bank said that as a long-standing provider of trade and supply chain finance solutions, it is becoming a Marco Polo member firm in order to offer better services for clients." This is not surprising, since it was already a member of R3 itself.

Competition

• "There are (9-2019) already around 30 consortia in the space, including Voltron (also built on Corda), ethereum-based CargoX and Asia-focused eTrade Connect, which runs on Hyperledger Fabric."