Banks and traders can now experience a fully paperless process on the Networked Trade Platform (NTP), including lodgement, claims and discharge of the banker's guarantee.
Singapore Customs has launched the first comprehensive electronic banker's guarantee (eBG) program on the NTP, following seven months of pilots with BNP Paribas, DBS Bank, OCBC Bank, SMBC and UOB, it announced on Thursday.
The eBG promises efficiency, time and cost savings and increased productivity as the process removes the need for the issuance and delivery of paper BGs by participating banks to Singapore Customs, which reduces the transit time to almost zero with a processing lead time of one day.
During the pilot it accounted for about 65 percent of the BGs issued by the participating banks to the Singapore Customs. Since the full roll-out on November 2, 100 percent of the BGs issued by participating banks with Singapore Customs as the beneficiary were eBG.
Towards Digital Trade
The eBG «is part of the NTP’s efforts to connect various parts of the trade and logistics ecosystem to enable stakeholders, in Singapore and abroad, to reap the benefits of digitalization, connectivity and interoperability, which will provide the foundation for Singapore to be a leading trade, supply chain and trade financing hub,» Singapore Customs said in the announcement.
«The launch of the eBG program was a big step in the right direction for the digitalization movement. It has benefited many of our trade finance customers and, the process is now truly digital from end-to-end,» Melvyn Low, head, global transaction banking, OCBC Bank, said
The NTP is part of a wider concerted effort by the Singapore government to drive an industry-wide digital transformation to build a trade and logistics digital ecosystem that connects businesses, community systems and platforms and government systems.
