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Accenture has announced that it will form a strategic partnership with Dublin-based distributed ledger technology company TradeIX.
Today (17 December), Accenture announced that it has invested in TradeIX, a Dublin-based company that has developed an open platform using distributed ledger technology (DLT) to facilitate the flow of goods, services, transactions and information within a secure environment for global trade.
Neither of the companies disclosed the terms of the equity investment, but Accenture said that it has now formed a “strategic alliance” with TradeIX.
Founded in 2016, TradeIX’s investors include ING Ventures, Kistefos Venture Capital and BNP Paribas Private Equity. It has worked with Bank of America, Commerzbank, DHL, Oracle and AIG, and has offices in London, Kettering and Singapore, as well as operations in Germany and the US.
Earlier this year, TradeIX announced plans to expand its Dublin headquarters.
New ways to share data
In a statement about the investment, Accenture said: “Current trade relies on time-consuming manual transaction processes that can be costly and hard to reconcile. Distributed ledger technology enables new ways to share data and the full automation of finance and accounting processes, increasing productivity and working capital while reducing overall risk for banking parties.”
As part of the agreement, Accenture will work with TradeIX to bring new use cases to market beyond banking, in a bid to address the needs of buyers and sellers within trade finance.
Melanie Cutlan, managing director of blockchain services for Accenture operations, said: “Building on TradeIX’s solid foundation across the banking community, this relationship will help companies unlock trapped value in data silos across key operational processes, such as finance, accounting and supply chain.
“Our goal is to scale this capability to help organisations achieve touchless payable and receivable processes within a secure and trusted environment – ultimately transforming how they conduct business with each other.”
The investment was made through Accenture’s investment arm, Accenture Ventures.
‘Instrumental’
Alastair Blair, country managing director for Accenture in Ireland, said: “Today’s announcement is a great example of Accenture’s continued commitment to Ireland. Our investment in TradeIX speaks volumes to Dublin’s position as an innovation and technology hub that is amongst the best in the world and we know our clients, both locally and globally, will benefit immensely from this new partnership.”
CEO and co-founder of TradeIX, Robert Barnes, added: “With our global footprint expanding exponentially across both banks and their corporate clients, this alliance with Accenture is instrumental in us achieving our ambitions in making trade more transparent, smarter and better connected internationally.”
By working together to develop touchless finance processes, such as procure-to-pay and order-to-cash, both companies will further expand the Marco Polo Network.
This network is a joint undertaking of more than 30 banks, corporations and technology providers, which aims to enable simple, secured sharing of trade-related data between financial institutions and their corporate clients – including buyers, suppliers, logistics and other entities. Accenture will also serve as a preferred implementation partner for the Marco Polo Platform.
