Author: Digital Trade Outlook

BMO and Mastercard have launched a capability that lets eligible BMO Corporate Card clients start and manage BMO Commercial virtual card payments directly inside the software they use to run their operations. BMO becomes the first Mastercard issuer in Canada to offer an integrated embedded finance and payment experience by virtual card. The capability is available now for eligible clients in Canada and the United States. It connects commercial payments to enterprise resource planning, procurement, accounts payable and travel management systems, so businesses can handle payments inside their existing workflows. It runs on Mastercard’s Commercial Express framework, which gives participating…

The European Investment Bank, through EIB Global and ADOPEM, a Dominican financial institution serving entrepreneurs and smaller businesses, have signed a €4.5 million financing agreement to support sargassum projects in the Dominican Republic. The loan is backed by the European Commission EFSD+ guarantee and remains subject to approval by the country’s Superintendency of Banks. The agreement was announced in Cancún, Mexico, on October 5, 2026. A further €1.1 million in European Commission technical assistance, supported by EIB Advisory, takes the Team Europe package to €5.6 million. The financing is meant for businesses with fewer than 10 employees and for small…

ANZ has completed one of the world’s first live corporate treasury transactions using tokenised deposits and Swift’s ledger, working with its customer BHP, Swift and Citi. The bank announced the milestone on September 30, 2026, and said it is the first Australian bank to use Swift’s blockchain ledger.The transaction involved US dollar payments between Melbourne and New York, and it was designed to keep friction low. BHP used its existing ANZ account and banking channel, while the tokenised deposits and digital ledger technology worked behind the scenes. ANZ said the payments showed how shared ledger technology could move cross border…

Mizuho Bank has selected Traydstream’s TraydCheck and TraydConnect to support its trade finance digitisation initiatives, the trade finance technology company said. The announcement was made from London and Tokyo on September 30, 2026.With Mizuho joining MUFG and SMBC, all three Japanese megabanks now use TraydCheck. Traydstream said this makes it the only trade finance focused fintech serving all three institutions through a common document checking platform.TraydCheck uses intelligent automation to support the scrutiny of trade documents, with the aim of reducing manual processing, improving consistency and speeding up turnaround times. TraydConnect adds digital connectivity and collaboration between banks and their…

Commercial Bank of Dubai (CBD) has become the first bank from the Middle East, and the first from outside Europe, to join the Commercial Bank Money Token network, known as CBMT. The initiative is led by Die Deutsche Kreditwirtschaft (German banking association) and counts Commerzbank, DZ Bank, Helaba, UniCredit, ABN AMRO, BNP Paribas and DNB among its participants. CBD will onboard to the CBMT Sandbox, which launched in Frankfurt in November 2025, and is run with GFT and UDPN as technical service providers. The sandbox currently covers the euro, US dollar, Japanese yen and Norwegian krone.A Network is Only as…

Apple Pay has launched in India for the first time, through a partnership with Axis Bank, giving the payment service its first foothold in one of the world’s largest digital payments markets. Axis Bank, India’s third-largest private lender, becomes the first Indian bank to offer Apple Pay, initially to credit card customers on the Visa and Mastercard networks. Cards on RuPay, India’s homegrown payment network, are not eligible.Over the coming weeks, Axis Bank Mastercard and Visa credit card customers will be able to add their cards to Apple Wallet, either through Axis Bank’s mobile app or directly through Apple Wallet,…

HLB Private Bank has launched the HLB Chief Investment Office Fund, a wholesale fund backed by the research and portfolio construction capabilities of its strategic alliance partner, Lombard Odier. The bank intends the fund to serve as the foundation for all future portfolio construction across its wealth business. The announcement was made in Singapore on September 28, 2026.The fund is designed as a discretionary portfolio management solution, spreading investments across global equities, fixed income and specialised market instruments. Holdings are selected from an open architecture universe of more than 50,000 global funds and include active fund managers, passive instruments and…

Land Bank of the Philippines (LANDBANK) has entered into discussions with NPCI International Payments Limited (NIPL), the international arm of National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI), which operates the Unified Payments Interface (UPI), over possible collaboration on digital payments and interoperability. The meeting was held in New Delhi during President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr.’s visit for the 18th BRICS Summit in India.LANDBANK President and CEO Lynette V. Ortiz led the discussions with NIPL Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer Ritesh Shukla. The agenda focused on enhancing cross border payments, streamlining government collections and disbursements, and expanding access to digital financial…

Sri Lanka’s Cargills Bank has extended its long running technology relationship with Intellect Design Arena, choosing the Indian fintech’s Composable eMACH.ai Core Banking Architecture as the base for the next stage of its digital transformation. The expanded programme brings the bank’s ‘Core Banking’, ‘Lending’, Trade Finance and Treasury’ functions onto one platform with a modular, cloud ready design. It covers the full range of day to day operations: bringing in new customers, handling deposits and payments, originating and servicing loans, managing credit limits and collateral, and running trade finance and treasury. According to Intellect, the goal is to help the bank launch…

IndusInd Bank has set up a dedicated banking vertical for Global Capability Centres (GCCs), the offshore units multinational companies run in India, bringing its corporate and employee banking services for the sector under a single relationship. The bank announced the launch in Mumbai on September 28, 2026.The vertical combines five services: digital banking, employee banking, commercial card solutions, capital account and foreign exchange management (FEMA) solutions, and foreign-currency accounts offered through the bank’s International Banking Unit (IBU) at GIFT City. The IBU gives GCCs a way to hold foreign-currency accounts and handle certain cross border banking needs alongside their domestic banking,…