Jaya Vohra, Barclays


“To enable digitalisation of trade, updating core technologies for better connectivity must be a priority”


Building on Barclays’ partnership agreement with the Department for Business and Trade, a trade digitisation taskforce, co-chaired by Barclays and ICC United Kingdom, was established in 2023 to promote the digitisation of trade. The taskforce, with its broad representation across financial institutions, industry bodies, platform providers and other key stakeholders, has demonstrated excellent progress across all areas of focus.

Jaya Vohra, Global Head of Trade & Working Capital Product and Client Management, Barclays, outlines the objectives of the taskforce, the broader implications of the establishment of a legal framework for electronic trade documents in the UK, and the importance of collaboration and standardisation to maximise the benefits of digitisation.

Objective of the Taskforce
The taskforce was assembled with a view to make recommendations to the UK government on specific areas to make trade easier, more efficient and more cost-effective – thereby not only supporting UK exports, but also driving benefits to trade activities globally. Key focus areas include:

  1. Commercialising the Electronic Trade Documents Act;
  2. Optimising digital documentation for smoother anti-money laundering and ‘Know Your Customer’ (KYC) processes;
  3. Combatting trade fraud;
  4. Advocating for efficient capital rules that recognise the low-risk nature of trade;
  5. Fostering international collaboration with key trading corridors.

Progress to Date
The taskforce has successfully delivered a set of recommendations to the government on Basel 3.1 rules, highlighting the low risk nature of Trade Finance.

Mitigating fraud risk within trade finance was a key focus area for the group, culminating in a robust set of recommendations for the Government, as outlined in the ICC UK published paper, ‘Trade Digitalisation Taskforce: Fraud Prevention Recommendations’. This paper explores the role of public-private partnership and collaboration between regulators and industry to mitigate the risk of fraud. It further highlights the role that Companies House could play in managing fraud risk, including the adoption of digital identities via public procurement systems.

Digitalisation of trade was the most important objective for the taskforce, with the group focused on how the UK could achieve digitalisation at scale. The diverse views and experience of the members of the taskforce helped shape a roadmap for the UK, a significant step forward for the industry. ICC United Kingdom and iC4DTI launched the ‘Roadmap to Digitalise UK Trade’ in December 2024, which includes three sets of recommendations – one for the Government, one for ICC & iC4DTI and one for businesses. It outlines the business case for digitalisation, the benefits for key parties to their trade transactions, and examines key trade corridors and upcoming milestones for digital trade across the globe.

Next Steps
Following the successes outlined above, the taskforce is now pivoting its focus towards recommending efficiencies that can be achieved in the ‘Know Your Customer’ (KYC) space – with KYC as a critical tool to mitigate the risk of financial crime. The taskforce will explore opportunities for simplification and collaboration across the industry to create efficiencies in the process, making access to trade finance simpler and faster for UK companies. The use of digital identities will form a key part of the recommendations from the taskforce.

Supporting Growth, Exports and Access to Trade Finance
The goal of this initiative is to increase access to trade finance, which plays a vital role in driving trade and economic prosperity and the desired growth at SME level. However, the paper-intensive nature of current trade processes presents an immense challenge, rendering it operationally inefficient for corporates, logistics providers and financiers. Digitalising trade processes and solutions can break this cycle and enable further access to trade finance for SMEs, alleviating risk and cost barriers. This transformation holds the potential to truly revolutionise the trade landscape.

Building Connectivity Through Emerging Technologies

To enable digitalisation of trade, updating core technologies for better connectivity must be a priority. Barclays has made significant progress in this area, with the ability to connect with different systems and emerging tools which will enable further support of digitalisation of trade. Similarly, UK businesses and global organisations will benefit from investing in their own platforms and making them connectable both internally and with the outside world.

Accelerating efforts towards trade digitalisation will enable the banking industry to reduce costs and improve processing times involved with traditional trade, benefitting our clients and their supply chains. Barclays clients are already experiencing, and will continue to experience, a higher level of digital interaction with Barclays, and a similar trend is being experienced across other banks as well.