UOB aims to bring all its bunker finance clients onto the Singapore Trade Data Exchange (SGTraDex) digital platform by June 2023, so that these companies can enhance their efficiency and data security.

The bank started onboarding its bunker finance clients after SGTraDex’s soft launch on 29 April 2022. With ‘live’ operations starting today, trades are being processed digitally and more clients will be onboarded in the coming months.

UOB is the largest financier of local bunker suppliers and it provides more than 50 per cent of the financing required by these companies. The bank is a founding member of SGTraDex, which is an open, secure and interoperable digital data exchange set up by the public and private sectors. SGTraDex allows for the digitalisation and rapid transmission of documents in the bunker supply chain to multiple parties, thus enhancing security and efficiency for bunker suppliers, bunker buyers, and banks.

Ms So Lay Hua, Head of Group Transaction Banking, UOB, said: “We are pleased to be the financing partner of choice for our local bunker suppliers to drive the digitalisation of their trade fulfilment and financing. This is key to enabling and supporting the development of Singapore as a more process- efficient and deal-transparent bunkering hub.”

Ms So added that SGTraDex allows clients and service providers to interact with UOB through a single data highway, which facilitates the compilation of trade documents and ensures secure submission to the bank. In addition, the bank can verify the authenticity of underlying transactions through digital Bunker Delivery Notes.

Bunker suppliers who have been onboarded to SGTraDex say they are benefitting from increased efficiency, cost and time savings, and improved data security.

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