Frequently Asked Questions

The we.trade platform is built using Hyperledger Fabric as the underlying blockchain technology

Before discussing which information is uploaded to the blockchain, it is important to note that we.trade leverages a feature in Hyperledger Fabric called “Channels”. Essentially each channel represents a private blockchain for which blocks and transactions are only transmitted to those peers who are a member of that channel. Any information uploaded to a channel is only present on authorized peers, and authorized peers only store the information from the channels they are members of.

Information about a trade - which is shared between buyer, seller, and their respective banks - is uploaded to a channel of which only buyer and seller bank nodes are members. Only these bank nodes have access to the information. This includes information about the companies buying and selling (such as company name and delivery address), information about what is sold, for which amount, and which services are procured.

Anonymous track & trace status data is uploaded to a channel of which all banks are members.

Concerning the trade information, 2 remarks are important.

• Personal data is never stored on the blockchain, only information about the legal entities engaging in trade
• For some specific parts, such as document attachments, only a reference is stored on-chain.

Personal data is never stored on the blockchain.

Documents attached for the trade counterparty are not stored on the blockchain.

Know your customer (KYC) is the process of a business identifying and verifying the identity of its clients. The term is also used to refer to the bank and anti-money laundering regulations which governs these activities.  

Some of the benefits are:

• Identification of unknown counterparts (all clients on we.trade are KYC’d)
• Bank Payment Undertaking (BPU): Counterparty risk transferred to bank
• Real time settlement enabled by one platform for all parties
• Event based automatic payment triggers through smart contracts
• Solutions available for the seller to finance deferred payment terms granted to the buyer.

All systems storing bank or consortium data are dedicated to the consortium, or to an individual bank.

These systems encrypt their data at file-system level. Sometimes this is supplemented with sharding across geographical locations, requiring compromise of multiple physical servers to reconstruct information, sometimes the data is stored in virtual machines employing hardware-supported encrypted disks and encrypted memory. All this ensure that the correct credentials are required to access these. The credentials are likewise managed in secure systems, which audit access, so only authorized users ae able to access system components.

Files uploaded as part of trade information are scanned for malware infection.

Smart contracts are computer programs that execute predefined actions when certain conditions within the platform are met. Smart contracts allow the ledger state to be modified. They can facilitate the exchange and transfer of anything of value.  

The enrolling bank will issue a Bank Payment Undertaking upon the request of its customer, as a buyer.

The Bank Payment Undertaking is issued in favour of the seller and constitutes an irrevocable and absolute undertaking by the Bank to make a payment directly to the seller, following the satisfaction of the Settlement Conditions defined in the Smart Contract. The Bank Payment Undertaking is governed by the law of England.   It is very similar to the Bank Payment Obligation, governed by ICC’s Uniform Rules for BPO.  However the difference is that BPU is based on fulfilment of settlement conditions in the smart contracts and payment is in favour of seller (not seller’s Bank).