POSCO International completes trade receivables tokenization pilot in US

POSCO International's US subsidiary has completed a pilot that converts trade receivables into digital assets and records them on a blockchain — going beyond a simple technology test to include an actual investor purchasing the receivables with real capital.

POSCO International America said Tuesday it had completed the trade receivables tokenization pilot with trade finance firm Olea and asset tokenization platform Intain.

In the pilot, receivables generated from POSCO International's trade transactions were issued as tokenized digital assets. Intain verified the receivables by cross-checking invoices, purchase orders, credit notes and shipping documents for consistency, then registered them on-chain.

The process left an on-chain record of each receivable's ownership and processing status, enabling the full transaction trail to be tracked and audited. The entire pilot ran on Intain's Layer 1 network, built on the Avalanche blockchain.

Olea is a trade finance firm backed by SC Ventures, the venture investment arm of Standard Chartered Group. The company connects corporate trade and supply chain financing needs with global capital providers, and in this pilot it participated as the investor and capital provider that directly purchased POSCO International's receivables.

POSCO International said digitizing the receivables verification and recording process reduced the complexity of reconciliation work that had recurred throughout traditional trade finance operations. Real-time visibility into asset transaction status would strengthen operational control, the company said, and is expected to open new financing channels backed by trade receivables.

Market observers expect blockchain-based trade finance to gain traction among large companies with significant cross-border transaction volumes. Multiple institutions are involved in receivables transactions, and considerable waiting time accumulates from document verification through fund transfers and settlement. Recording and automating the process on-chain can substantially cut both time and cost.

Amelia Ng, CEO of Olea, said the pilot represented "an important step beyond proof-of-concept toward real-world adoption," adding that it was meaningful to help global companies connect traditional supply chains with digital financial infrastructure and generate new efficiencies across trade and treasury management.

Siddhartha, founder and CEO of Intain, said "AI established the authenticity of the assets, and blockchain preserved that fact and connected it to finance," predicting the model could be applied broadly across institutional asset securitization.

Kim Yong-il, vice president of global business development at Avalanche, said large companies with significant cross-border transaction volumes could see blockchain-driven time and cost savings affect their profitability. "As blockchain takes on the role of automated finance, I expect this kind of trend to grow," he said.