A secure and converging supply chain finance platform that empowers organisations to realise more value from their ecosystems

SC Ventures, Standard Chartered’s innovation, fintech investment and ventures arm, announced the launch of Trade and Supply Chain Connect (TASConnect), a bank agnostic supply chain finance platform that unlocks significant value for organisations, by providing end to end automation, visibility and control of their trade and supply chain ecosystems.

TASConnect, based out of Singapore, aims to be a leading provider of automated trade and supply chain financing solutions, which gives organisations and their ecosystems better access to liquidity and working capital management. It is designed to improve cash flow within supply chains through four key capabilities:

• Significantly enhancing efficiencies in accounts payable and receivable financing programmes
• Enabling access to increased working capital sources
• Automating and simplifying bespoke and complex workflows
• Allowing businesses control of their own programmes in a secure and sustainable manner 

TASConnect is based on principles of co-creation and collaboration with clients to address their pain points of managing large, fragmented, and opaque supply chain finance processes. Lenovo, Gartner Top 25 Global Supply Chain company, is one of TASConnect’s pioneer clients. The platform will help organisations to efficiently simplify complex connections with their multiple value-chain partners, including suppliers, buyers and banks. By retaining control and visibility of their ecosystems, companies will be empowered by TASConnect to customise processes and gain efficiency and value from their supply chains. Each organisation is also provided with an independent data tenancy and a customised site hosted in the cloud, thereby conforming to the highest standards of security. The unique combination of a fully automated platform, with partner integration and ease of customisation, makes this a differentiated and unique solution.

Alex Manson of SC Ventures said: “We work closely with corporates to understand their business and challenges. TASConnect is a result of the client co-creation process that aims to realise value by connecting ecosystems with trust and trade.”

As one of TASConnect’s anchor client, Lenovo has greatly benefitted in improving on its supply chain financing efficiency, operations and workflow.

Hugh Wu, Global Treasury Head of Lenovo, said: “TASConnect helped us transform and fully automate our previously manual supply chain finance processes. The platform is customised to integrate all our financing banks and replicate our own workflows. Our Treasury function is now empowered with end-to-end visibility and control, all via one single platform.”

At launch, TASConnect will offer accounts payable and accounts receivable management solutions, focusing on large corporate organisations. As part of roadmap, TASConnect is adding capabilities powered by artificial intelligence, machine learning and blockchain, along with ESG traceability to bring greater value to businesses.