Trade finance messaging
Banks, corporates and correspondents exchange structured instructions, status messages and confirmations tied to underlying trade flows and risk positions.
Pillar — Commerce & Trade
← Back to pillarsTrade and supply-chain signals, without a new hub.
Commerce & Trade covers trade finance, logistics, customs and compliance-related exchanges that move between banks, traders, logistics operators and authorities. Interlayer works at the message layer so that these actors can coordinate without handing control to a new central platform or data intermediary.
Core questions
How can institutions align trade, shipment and compliance messages across multiple systems and jurisdictions while keeping commercial data, risk positions and customer records in their existing estates?
Interlayer’s role
Define and translate structured messages between banks, corporates, logistics operators and public bodies, under existing trade, sanctions and customs regimes.
Constraints
No central trade repository operated by Interlayer, no new “single-platform” model, and no custody of financial or commercial positions.
Where interoperability questions appear
Trade finance, logistics visibility and regulatory interfaces.
International trade involves many actors with their own systems and oversight regimes. Interlayer supports the message flows that sit between these actors, while leaving execution, balances and documents under existing governance.
Logistics & supply-chain status
Carriers, freight forwarders, ports and warehouses hold their own operational systems but still need to surface structured status and event signals to partners and oversight bodies.
Customs & compliance interfaces
Regulatory and customs authorities require structured declarations and notifications. Interlayer helps align those messages with institutional systems without centralising declarations into an Interlayer-operated database.
Message patterns
Examples of non-custodial commerce & trade flows.
These examples focus on message interpretation, translation and alignment. Commercial risk, liquidity and customer data remain within existing banking, corporate and logistics systems.
Pattern 1
Trade finance instruction alignment- 1. A corporate issues trade instructions through its existing banking or treasury system.
- 2. Translator maps those instructions to ISO-20022 or agreed JSON structures for counterparties.
- 3. Banks and correspondents receive aligned messages while maintaining their own ledgers and risk systems.
- 4. The translator never holds balances, collateral or definitive trade records.
Pattern 2
Shipment status signals- 1. Logistics operators emit shipment events from their own platforms.
- 2. Translator normalises these events into neutral status messages for banks, corporates and authorities.
- 3. Recipients use the signals to update their own risk, funding or operational views.
- 4. Detailed location, IoT and operational telemetry remains in the operators’ systems.
Pattern 3
Compliance & customs declarations- 1. Institutions prepare declarations and compliance messages in their existing systems.
- 2. Translator aligns those messages to the structures required by customs or regulatory gateways.
- 3. Authorities receive consistent, auditable messages while institutions retain their underlying data and files.
- 4. Interlayer does not become the system of record for regulatory decisions or declarations.
Translator role in this pillar
A neutral interpreter for trade messages, not a trading venue.
Interlayer focuses on how trade-related messages are structured and exchanged between actors. It does not run trading venues, marketplaces or settlement infrastructure.
Interpret
Work with banks, corporates, logistics operators and authorities to understand existing trade, shipment and compliance message formats and constraints.
Translate
Define neutral message structures — often ISO-20022- or JSON-based — and provide mappings so each participant can adopt them from within their existing systems.
Align
Ensure message flows are auditable and compatible with trade, sanctions and customs requirements, without shifting legal responsibility away from existing actors.
Assurance & governance alignment
Commerce and trade touch financial risk, sanctions compliance and regulatory reporting. Any interoperability work must respect these boundaries and leave institutions in control of their own obligations.
- • Translator artefacts can be reviewed by legal, compliance and audit teams.
- • Deployments favour environments under institutional or programme control.
- • Interlayer does not intermediate legal responsibility for trade decisions or regulatory filings.
Typical starting points
- • Aligning trade finance messages between banks, corporates and correspondents.
- • Normalising logistics status events for financial and regulatory consumers.
- • Structuring customs and compliance declaration messages across systems.