The efficiency of transactions today is hindered by costly and processes. In very simple terms, the purchasing party will always face the risk of fraud, as it can never be sure that the selling party will fulfill its obligations.
In the trade finance context, smart contract technology is a missing piece: a transaction won’t execute until predefined settlement conditions are met, significantly decreasing associated risks. With smart contracts, the majority of processes related to paperwork, KYC, and AML can be done autonomously. This greatly reduces a wide array of operational costs, decreases settlement times, and makes particular markets more liquid. Smart contracts will come into play for other related payment use cases.