The so-called tokenized IOUs, FlowTokens, have implications for financial institutions and banks that make their money through cross-border payments. FlowTokens could efficiently do for trade finance and supply chain management what Facebook’s Libra is trying to do at a consumer level with stablecoins and wallets. Earlier this year, Tradeshift had completed its domestic transaction with the help of its partner, Monerium. IKEA Iceland and Nordic Store were part of the transaction.
The next phase of testing involved a smart contract which contained a euro-dominated e-money during cross border transactions. According to Monerium and Tradeshift, they first settled a fixed fee cost of 17 cents on €1024 and 16 cents on €512. Sveinn Valfells, CEO of Monerium, confirmed that Monerium’s e-money on Ethereum would be used in Germany, Iceland, Lithuania, Denmark, France, U.K. and Lithuania, France and Sweden. Gert Sylvest, Tradeshift’s co-founder and GM of Tradeshift Frontiers said that for cross-border payments, they have accepted invoice and tokenized the same on Ethereum project.
Contrary to Tradeshift, the CEO of Nordic Store, Hafsteinn Guðbjartsson, complained that lack of transparency and crippling costs pose significant problems in testing a new blockchain. He also added that they have issues with Thailand’s currency since it has many financial constraints. He backed his statement by saying that they send dollars to Thailand, and the country never receives the amount they requested. Moreover, Thailand’s banks charge a significant amount of fee on a small amount, which is problematic for them.