Next-Gen Digital Platform for an Illiquid Asset Management Leader

Success Story

Scalefocus partnered with a fintech trailblazer in Trade Finance to replace their existing system with a holistic solution for large-scale corporate transactions. To find the best technology approach and address inefficiencies causing negative trends, our team worked in constant collaboration with the client. In under a year, the Scalefocus team managed to build a cutting-edge cloud-native platform for the Trade Finance market.

The Client

Our client is a global provider of illiquid asset management streamlining trading and operations for Banks, Corporates, and Insurance companies. Their system digitizes three asset classes – Trade Finance, Insurance and Loans. The idea behind their platform is to improve working capital for its clients. Since its inception in 2016, the company’s trade volume has exceeded $100B.

The Challenge

The client initiated a technology partnership with Scalefocus to fully transform their legacy platform, expand its capabilities and drive additional revenue streams. The main limitations of the existing solution’s architecture were lack of cohesiveness between features and non-optimal interface.

Our task was to bring all functionalities, such as Account Receivables (AR), Supply Chain Finance (SCF), Insurance (INS) and Post-Trade Settlement (PTS) within an entirely rearchitected user-friendly system accelerating market success for its users. This required full re-engineering of the entire suite of technology offerings to modernize the platform and help our client leave expensive, inefficient and opaque liquid asset management in the past.

The Solution

To find the best technology approach and address inefficiencies affecting the platform’s performance causing sustainable negative trends, our team worked in constant collaboration with the client. In under a year, the Scalefocus team managed to build a cutting-edge cloud-native platform for the Trade Finance market.

We started by creating MVPs for Supply Chain and Entitlements to focus on core functionalities, which helped us stay on track and make better development decisions in the long run. By working in short iterations, we accelerated testing for the platform’s users, utilizing more opportunities for feedback and making deployment more efficient. We then extended that approach to Account Receivables, Insurance, Post-Trade Settlement and later to all of the remaining features. Given the scope of the project our timeframe was very tight, yet all functionalities and transaction protocols were up and running, offering full usability.

We chose Azure for the main platform as well as for our client’s separate blockchain utility, their solution for digitizing manual assets and decentralizing corporate trading. Our main priority upon completion of the new comprehensive platform was to prepare it for constantly evolving industry and client requirements. As part of this strategy we developed a White Label Solution enabling corporate clients to deliver the platform’s services to their own clients with new branding. The solution’s mission is to improve customer experience, reduce costs and increase operational efficiency.

We designed a microservices architecture using .NET 6 in Azure Cloud where we utilized most services and tools, such as Azure CosmosDB, Azure Logic Apps, Azure SQL Database, Azure Functions, Docker container orchestration with Kubernetes, etc. In a tight timeframe, our .NET team processed large amounts of assets, the majority of which were invoices. Once these assets were processed, we made them available to our client’s trading customers. The platform was deployed in the USA, Europe, and Asia, and can offer an optimal subset of assets according to set criteria that, after explicit permission, become available for trading.

Additionally, we implemented limit management for assets with information about amounts, currencies, and suppliers. The trading limits contain several optimization tasks that our .NET experts had to solve, e.g., getting the best asset subset for a certain amount with a specific set of criteria (maturity date, traders’ profiles, etc.). We also utilized our .NET expertise in the development of the entire onboarding process, which involved Salesforce integrations, third party providers, customers, and white labeling of the solution.

• Full re-engineering of the technical infrastructure

• New log-in capability with a single sign-in

• Blockchain utility facilitating information exchange through digital assets

• White Label Solution allowing technology outsourcing for corporate clients

• Account Receivables marketplace for corporate debt

• Entitlements portal managing user permissions and platform access

• Post-trade Settlement module managing incoming and outgoing payments

• Supply Chain Financing for corporate receivables where funders finance suppliers and buyer receivables

• Trade Credit Insurance marketplace allowing IPs to request insurance quotes from multiple ICs

The Results

The Scalefocus team faced different challenges along the way, including constantly evolving requirements and the need for reprioritization due to the Covid-19 pandemic. The collaboration had begun a few months before the onset of the global health crisis, yet the new platform’s entire product suite was up and running within a year with all necessary players onboarded. In a time of unprecedented market turbulence, we built an agile platform with intuitive interface, in which one legal agreement allows large-scale transactions with all parties. This next-generation network makes it as simple as a few clicks to safely buy or sell assets in multi-million-dollar Trade Finance deals.

To ensure continued growth, our development plan is focused on further expanding the capabilities of the system, both from an operations and client-facing perspective. Next in the roadmap is working to offer more trading protocols, available currencies and integrating new asset classes in line with the evolving needs of the platform’s clients. Another important task we have ahead is providing connectivity to the client’s blockchain solution to make asset verification and authentication fully standardized, allow full visibility and eliminate manual intervention.

• Complete visual revamp

• One holistic platform with solutions for working capital finance and insurance

• Access to a wide liquidity pool of diverse funders and insurers

• Greater operational and transactional efficiency for corporate clients

• Multibillion-dollar opportunities for Banks, Corporates and Insurance companies