“Our mission is to accelerate and scale up the digitalisation of world trade”
Accelerating digital transformation in trade requires a trusted, independent entity capable of uniting diverse stakeholders across the public and private sectors. iC4DTI, co-founded by HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) and ICC United Kingdom, is the only institution of its kind in the UK—and globally—dedicated to this mission.
Based at Teesside University with support from the Tees Valley Combined Authority, iC4DTI operates as an industry-led, government-supported public-private partnership that works with the ICC Digital Standards Initiative, foreign governments, business groups, companies and international partners to digitalise UK trade. It operates in collaboration with the Cabinet Office, HMRC, and the Departments for Business and Trade and Science, Innovation and Technology, ensuring alignment with national trade digitalisation priorities and delivery of the Roadmap to Digitalise UK Trade.
iC4DTI is an international centre of excellence, born from experience in removing policy and legal barriers, establishing interoperable systems and digitalising borders, trade corridors and global supply chains. Our purpose is to provide the implementation capability to deliver at pace and scale and ensure all companies and economies benefit, especially MSMEs and emerging economies. We are agnostic to technology and advocate for open, interoperable systems (laws, rules, standards).
Vision
Our vision is a modern, digital trading system that is cheaper, faster, simpler and more secure and sustainable for all companies. An environment where data, not documents, is used effectively and trade transactions happen in real-time. Where risk is reduced, finance is cheaper and more accessible, borders are frictionless, systems and processes connect, and information flows in common, standardised formats across jurisdictions. An environment that enables trade and sustainability data to combine and provide more transparent and green supply chains.
The challenge
Across much of the world, the trading system suffers from antiquated laws and a lack of data standardisation. Systems are fragmented, and processes are unnecessarily paper-heavy making trade inefficient, slow and costly, especially for smaller economies and companies who are disproportionately impacted by trade friction and unnecessary bureaucracy.
For companies using English, Singapore laws and the US Uniform Commercial Code (UCC), this is changing fast. These laws and codes have removed all legal requirements to handle documents of title on paper for 80-90% of international trade transactions, enabling companies to transact digitally under public law for the first time. The challenge is to now scale up trade digitalisation across public and private sector systems, borders, trade corridors and global supply chains and ensure all companies can reap the economic benefits.
Our Mission
Our mission is to accelerate and scale up the digitalisation of world trade. We deliver this mission through a wide range of practical services and opportunities:
- Campaigns to promote the benefits of digitalisation and adoption of international standards.
- Education and training to support companies to digitalise trade ecosystems.
- Research to provide thought leadership and identify potential barriers and solutions to digitalisation.
- Market infrastructure to ensure the digital trade is able to function effectively and able to innovate.
- End-to-end cross-border supply chain pilots to test the application of international frameworks, the functionality of standardised systems, processes and technology solutions.
- A dedicated corporate digitalisation taskforce to scale up the benefits of trade digitalisation across global supply chains.
- Legal assistance to support low to middle-income countries to remove requirements for the use of paper commercial trade documents and align legal systems.
- Multilateral engagement to ensure international alignment and coordination.
- iC4DTI Digital Trade Conference and Awards to promote international best practice.
Investing in iC4DTI presents a strategic opportunity to unlock significant economic gains, establish the UK as a global leader in 21st-century trade, and extend these benefits to emerging markets, particularly across the Commonwealth and Africa.