<\/p>\n
The Lloyds, Societe Generale, and partners delivered the first fully digital letter of credit (LC) transaction under real commercial conditions between France and the UK.<\/p>\n
Issued by Lloyds on 8 June, the LC covered an industrial equipment export from France to the UK. It involved French manufacturer BOBST Lyon, UK-based sheet feeder Board24, and Swedish digital platform Enigio, which provides technology for pioneering digital LC transactions.<\/p>\n
Rather than a PDF copy of the original LC, a digital LC represents a \u2018digital original\u2019. Electronic trade documents must carry the integrity that gives a stakeholder the right to demand money or goods, achieved by ensuring the digital document is singular, identifiable, and reflects possession.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cWhat we\u2019ve built at Enigio is an open network, not a closed platform. Societe Generale, Lloyds, and their corporate customers could each issue, transfer, and hold the digital LC independently, with one single original preserved throughout. That\u2019s what let four different organisations move quickly on this transaction,\u201d Petter Nylander, Enigio\u2019s CEO said.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n The United Nations Commission on International Trade Law\u2019s (UNCITRAL) Model Law on Electronic Transferable Records (MLETR) was drafted in 2017 to bring legal recognition to digital trade documents. The UK was an early aligner with MLETR through its implementation of the Electronic Trade Documents Act (ETDA) in 2023.<\/p>\n France followed suit in 2024, when its national assembly approved MLETR-aligned legislation. The law was formally adopted on 5 June 2024, recognising a \u2018Titre Transf\u00e9rable \u00c9lectronique\u2019. \u201cFrance\u2019s adoption of MLETR-aligned legislation has provided a strong catalyst for the digitalisation of trade documents, creating renewed momentum across the trade finance ecosystem,\u201d Christian Cazenove, Group Head of Trade Finance Oversight & Advocacy at Societe Generale, told.<\/p>\n He acknowledged progress in terms of cooperation between banks, corporates, and technology providers, but noted that \u201cbroader corporate adoption remains the next critical step.\u201d<\/p>\n On the technological side, \u201cOf course, each new jurisdiction brings its own legal and operational nuances, but we map all those processes from the outset, so that our technology can support their existing ways of working rather than forcing change on them,\u201d said Nylander. \u201cThat open approach is frequently the deciding factor in whether a digital trade transaction succeeds, regardless of which two countries are involved.\u201d<\/p>\n Since the UK\u2019s implementation of the ETDA, Lloyds has been a key driver of the move towards digital trade documents. The bank completed the UK\u2019s first digital bill of exchange (BoE) with fintech Mercore in February 2023, using Enigio\u2019s trace:original technology. It then executed the first digital trade transaction on trace:original, the day the ETDA came into force.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Lloyds has also completed the fully digital cross-border trade transaction with China in June 2025, and a digital LC transaction with WaveBL covering the India-UK trade corridor six months after the two countries signed a comprehensive free trade agreement (FTA).\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n France has adopted MLETR-aligned legislation, but its legal path has moved more slowly than the UK\u2019s, with provisions only becoming enforceable in August 2025. For France, this transaction marks its first digital LC under real commercial conditions.<\/p>\n \u201cAs more jurisdictions adopt MLETR-aligned legislation, we expect transactions like this to become the standard,\u201d said Surath Sengupta, Head of Transaction Banking at Lloyds.<\/p>\n <\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The Lloyds, Societe Generale, and partners delivered the first fully digital letter of credit (LC) transaction under real commercial conditions between France and the UK. Issued by Lloyds on 8 June, the LC covered an industrial equipment export from France to the UK. It involved French manufacturer BOBST Lyon, UK-based sheet feeder Board24, and Swedish…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6787,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6786","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bez-rubriki"],"featured_image_src":{"landsacpe":["https:\/\/relinvestmentsgroup.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/Lloyds-bank-10-678x445.jpeg",678,445,true],"list":["https:\/\/relinvestmentsgroup.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/Lloyds-bank-10-463x348.jpeg",463,348,true],"medium":["https:\/\/relinvestmentsgroup.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/Lloyds-bank-10-300x200.jpeg",300,200,true],"full":["https:\/\/relinvestmentsgroup.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/Lloyds-bank-10.jpeg",678,452,false]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/relinvestmentsgroup.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6786","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/relinvestmentsgroup.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/relinvestmentsgroup.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/relinvestmentsgroup.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/relinvestmentsgroup.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6786"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/relinvestmentsgroup.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6786\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6788,"href":"https:\/\/relinvestmentsgroup.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6786\/revisions\/6788"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/relinvestmentsgroup.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6787"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/relinvestmentsgroup.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6786"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/relinvestmentsgroup.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6786"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/relinvestmentsgroup.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6786"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}