Contour
“Can a bank-consortium blockchain network for trade finance Letters of Credit evolve into the infrastructure layer powering digital trade finance globally under the Xalts brand?”
Contour launched as a distributed ledger technology (DLT) platform to digitise Letters of Credit in international trade, backed by a consortium of major banks including DBS. The platform enabled bank participants (such as DBS) and corporates (such as Nanjing Iron & Steel and Rio Tinto) to execute digitally secured LC transactions on a blockchain network. Following its Series A in 2021, Contour was absorbed into or rebranded under Xalts, a trade finance and embedded finance infrastructure provider, expanding its scope beyond LC digitisation. The Xalts rebrand signals a pivot toward broader trade finance infrastructure-as-a-service rather than a standalone bank consortium network.