We Can Stop Duplicate Financing Fraud This Year, Says International Chamber of Commerce United Kingdom as New Initiative Launched

The International Chamber of Commerce United Kingdom (ICC United Kingdom) has announced a new initiative to strengthen the UK finance industry against the impacts of duplicate financing fraud. The Centre for Digital Trade and Innovation (C4DTI)-led initiative will leverage ICC United Kingdom’s convening capabilities to deliver this flagship project under the C4DTI’s Shutting fraudsters out of trade workstream in partnership with MonetaGo.

Duplicate financing is defined as fraud by which fraudsters get the same transaction financed multiple times. Today, a fraudster can go to multiple banks and have the exact same trade financed, without the banks having the ability to cross check. Regulation around confidentiality hinders banks from sharing information on deals they have financed with other banks, creating a grey area that fraudsters leverage to finance the same transaction multiple times. It is a fraud typology impossible to detect via existing siloed AI and KYC tools and requires an innovative and collaborative ecosystem approach. Duplicate financing has therefore syphoned billions of dollars from the financial services community globally.

By the end of 2023, UK banks will be able to ensure that a transaction has not been financed multiple times in the banking community. Although some details remain confidential, the majority of trade banks in the UK have agreed to take part in the project, with more expected to join in due course. This would make the UK the first G7 economy to tackle this issue, saving hundreds of millions of pounds in lost funding that can be better spend facilitating real trade transactions. In the context of a global trade finance gap of $1.7 trillion, it is crucial that penny goes to legitimate businesses.

"Technological innovation will change the game in finance over the next five years, with the UK taking a leading charge in MLETR legislative reforms. This will unlock much-needed innovation which will revolutionise finance," said Chris Southworth, Secretary General of ICC United Kingdom.

"Not all innovations require years to deliver value, and eliminating duplicate financing fraud, in partnership with MonetaGo, is a great example of an existing solution that will have a significant impact in the short term. ICC United Kingdom is uniquely positioned to help accelerate the elimination of duplicate financing fraud, with the aim that every financed Pound makes its way to a business raising finance legitimately by the end of 2023."

To combat duplicate financing fraud, ICC United Kingdom has partnered with financial technology provider MonetaGo. The firm's service has been live since 2018, processing millions of transactions in Asia and actively preventing duplicate financing in receivables discounting and invoice finance. The service is available on SWIFT's new API Gateway service offering, enabling its 11,000+ member financial institutions to access the MonetaGo service. Built from the ground up on international standards, this fraud prevention utility connects to a wide array of financing platforms.

Notes to editors:

ICC United Kingdom is the UK representative office of the International Chamber of Commerce, the largest world business organisation representing 45 million companies in 100 countries. ICC’s mission is to promote inclusive, sustainable and green trade. Its rules underpin $25 trillion of global trade.

ICC United Kingdom represents the voice of British business at the inter-governmental level, including the United Nations, G20 and World Trade. Organization. For further information, please visit iccwbo.uk .

The Centre for Digital Trade and Innovation (C4DTI) is an ICC United Kingdom-led, global initiative based in Teesside in the North-East of England. Launched in April 2022 as a public, private partnership, its mission is to accelerate the digitalisation of UK trade and promote the adoption of interoperable legal, standards and rules frameworks. For further information, please visit c4dti.co.uk .

MonetaGo's Secure Financing solution enables banks and traditional financiers as well as non-bank financial institutions, fintechs and trade finance funds to check for duplication of financing requests linked to invoices, bills of lading, air waybills, warehouse receipts, purchase orders and other trade-related documents.

Since entering full production in 2018, the Secure Financing system has processed over 4 million transactions and has been integrated into SWIFT's API-enabled infrastructure as the first third-party service on SWIFT, providing its member institutions with an important tool to combat duplicate financing fraud in trade and supply chain finance.

MonetaGo has recently been awarded Best Fintech Startup in Trade 2022 by Global Trade Review, while its Secure Financing solution has been recognised as Best Solution in Trade Finance at the AMTD DigFin Innovation Awards at the Hong Kong Fintech Week 2021, and as Most Effective Bank-Fintech Partnership at the IBS Intelligence Global Fintech Innovation Awards 2021. For further information, please visit monetago.com.

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Contact information

Michael Keating; press@iccwbo.uk; +44 7542 935329
Matt Stapleton; matt@monetago.com; +65 9654 9402