French Law Paves Way for Digitalization

• French Senate is set to debate a new law inspired by the Model Law on Electronic Transferable Records that would allow digital trade documents to optimise trade finance.
• The law could massively boost DLT adoption to underpin digital documentation and provide decentralised identity; IOTA is the leader in this field, with initiatives in Europe, Africa and the Middle East.

France has taken the first step in digitalising trade finance. With a new law that could massively boost decentralised ledger technology (DLT) adoption in the country, it seeks to compete with Germany, the UK, and other leading investment destinations.

As featured in Global Trade Review, France is pursuing a new law that will pave the way for this digitalisation. The draft bill has the support of President Emmanuel Macron and his Renaissance Party. It sailed through the lower house of the country’s parliament two weeks ago and is now on the floor of the Senate, which is set to debate it in a month.

The new law is inspired by the Model Law on Electronic Transferable Records, a 2017 framework by the United Nations that legalises the use of digital documents and identities in global trade. It legally recognises digital versions of paper documents, stating that they can be used interchangeably. It will also amend several other trade, tech and finance laws to accommodate digital documents, although no new legislation will be required.

According to Alexandre Holroyd, the legislator behind the bill, the reforms will boost the prospects of local companies in global trade and enable them to raise financing more easily.

He told one outlet:

All these factors were very early on identified by the government and myself, and this is why we were so keen to ensure that France would be a pioneer of digital trade finance, and lead our EU partners on this path.

The most significant change will be in the speed and ease of processes. For instance, when a company seeks financing from a bank for its exports, all it will need to do is share all the necessary documents digitally. Previously, it would need to deliver dozens of documents physically.

“Therefore, we expect projects to be more easily and quickly financed. Digitalising these trade records also means speeding up and simplifying the numerous exchanges along the export chain,” the legislator added.

IOTA Gets Big Boost in France

The new law will massively boost the uptake of DLT to underpin documents and processes for added security and cost efficiency. IOTA, the industry leader in trade finance, is set to be the biggest beneficiary in the blockchain world.

IOTA is behind the Trade and Logistics Information Pipeline (TLIP), a joint venture with TradeMark Africa, the World Economic Forum, the World Trade Organization, the Global Alliance for Trade Facilitation and more.

👀 Exciting news in European trade finance! France gears up for digital transformation with a new law inspired by the MLETR. 🇫🇷 Scheduled for Senate debate next month, it paves the way for digital trade documents, optimising trade finance processes. Similar to the UK’s efforts…

— Trade and Logistics Information Pipeline (@TLIP_io) April 18, 2024

TLIP seeks to promote global trade, underpinned by IOTA’s market-leading decentralised acrylic graph architecture. As reported recently, IOTA and TLIP became the first to join the Virtual Watch Tower, an initiative to enhance global supply chains through decentralised data sharing.

Digital trade and finance are only possible with secure, robust and easily accessible digital identity, and IOTA is a leader in this field as well. It recently partnered with UniMe ID wallet to boost compliance with the EU identity standards, as explained in our video below.

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