Private by deal
Every letter of credit or collection gets its own circle of members. Other banks on the network never see its contents.
TRADE LEDGER / PRIVATE TRADE FINANCEA shared record, from issue to settlement
A better way
to move trade.
One deal moves through many hands.
Give every party the same story.
Connect banks and businesses around letters of credit, documents, and invoice finance — while commercial terms stay inside the deal.
Follow the trade LETTER OF CREDIT LC-2026-0412ILLUSTRATIVE DEAL
THE DEAL BEGINS
A credit is issued. The terms stay private.
The issuing bank records its attestation. Amounts, goods, dates and conditions stay with the deal’s collection members.
PRIVATE COLLECTION
Amounts · Goods · Credit conditions
Shared record: issuance attested
The problem
Trade finance still runs on paper, email and trust.
A single shipment can involve four banks, two companies, a carrier and an insurer, each keeping its own copy of the truth. The gaps between those copies are where delays and fraud live.
The same invoice, financed twice
A borrower can pledge one invoice or bill of lading to several banks. No bank can see the others' books, so the fraud is found only after the money is gone.
Documents cross oceans by courier
Original documents are posted, re-keyed and checked by hand at each bank. Weeks pass between shipment and payment.
Every bank reconciles alone
Each bank's status for a deal can differ, and resolving that means calls, messages and manual matching.
Shared platforms expose too much
Industry platforms that pool data leave banks wary of showing customers, prices and exposure to competitors.
How it works
One deal, one private circle, one shared timeline.
Open a deal collection
The issuing bank opens a private collection for the deal. Its members are the banks and companies involved, and the list is declared publicly so everyone knows who is in the circle.
Issue the credit
Amounts, goods, dates and conditions are stored only with the deal members. The network records that the issuing bank attested the issuance.
Present and check documents
Invoices, bills of lading and certificates are presented digitally. Checking banks attest whether the documents comply, and each document's fingerprint is recorded.
Register the invoice once
Before financing, a one-way fingerprint of the invoice's identifying details is checked against every registration on the network. A duplicate registration using the same identifying details is refused on this network. Financing outside the network is not detected by this check.
Release payment under policy
Payment is released only when the attestations required by the deal's policy are present. Every bank in the deal sees the same final status after the transaction is finalized.
Who sees what
Shared truth without shared secrets.
Collection membership and attestation metadata are visible. Private payload access depends on the organizations declared in each collection.
| Information | Banks in the deal | Buyer and seller | Other banks | Validators |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Amounts, goods and conditions | Yes | Yes | No | No |
| Trade documents | Yes | Yes | No | No |
| Whether an invoice is already financed | Yes | Own deals | Yes, fingerprint only | Fingerprint only |
| That a step was attested by the right banks | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| The policy in force | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Policy, not phone calls
Payment rules every bank can read before it signs.
The conditions for releasing payment are written as an attestation policy and committed to the ledger. Validators enforce the exact version the deal was opened with.
- The issuing bank must always attest.
- Either the advising or the confirming bank may countersign, so one bank being offline does not stall payment.
- Two of three approved inspection firms must confirm the goods.
policy: release_payment v2
- And
- Issuing Bank
- Or
- Advising Bank
- Confirming Bank
- OutOf 2
- Inspector A
- Inspector B
- Inspector C
Features
Built for how trade banks actually work.
Network-wide duplicate checks
Invoice and bill of lading fingerprints are checked network-wide before a bank advances funds.
Programmable release
Combine And, Or and OutOf rules to match your credit terms and internal approvals.
One status for everyone
Every member of a deal sees the same ordered history, to reduce discrepancies between participants’ records.
Regulator seats
A supervisor or auditor can be added as a declared member of the collections it is entitled to see, and no others.
Post-quantum signatures
ML-DSA signatures keep trade records verifiable for the full retention period regulators require.
Who it is for
Everyone around the deal table.
Head of trade operations
Faster document checks, fewer discrepancies and one status per deal.
Credit risk officer
Network-wide duplicate detection without seeing other banks' books.
Exporter treasury
Shorter time from shipment to cash, with full visibility of your own deals.
Questions
What banks ask first.
Can other banks on the network see my customers or exposure?
No. Deal data lives only in that deal's private collection. Banks outside the deal see that attested events happened and, for invoices, a one-way fingerprint used to detect duplicates. They do not see private amounts or documents. Collection membership and attestation metadata are visible on the ledger.
How does duplicate financing detection work if invoices are private?
When an invoice is registered for financing, TradeLedger records a fingerprint derived from its identifying details. Any later registration with the same fingerprint is refused, whichever bank submits it. The fingerprint enables matching without publishing the invoice contents; it is not a guarantee that identifiers cannot be guessed or correlated.
Does TradeLedger replace our trade finance system or messaging network?
No. It sits alongside them as the shared record of deal status and documents. Your existing systems connect through APIs, and the product is designed to work with the messaging standards your bank already uses.
What happens if one bank's node is offline?
Policies can allow alternatives, such as either the advising or the confirming bank. The network itself tolerates failed or faulty validators and keeps finalizing blocks once a quorum agrees.
Why does post-quantum cryptography matter for trade?
Trade records are kept for many years and may be used as evidence in disputes. Signatures made with ML-DSA are designed to stay unforgeable even against future quantum computers.
ONE PROTOCOL. SHARED POSSIBILITIES.Understand the workflow.
Understand the workflow.
See the bigger picture.
Qkite is in active development with design partners.
Explore the protocol and the other applications built on it.