ICC Announces Executive Appointments to Lead the Digital Standards Initiative – ICC

ICC – known for its global standards that enable trillions of dollars worth of cross-border transactions each year – has announced the operational launch of a major new initiative to ensure the benefits of digital commerce can be enjoyed by everyone, everywhere.

The ICC Digital Standards Initiative (DSI) will work towards the ambitious goal of creating a globally harmonised, digitized trading environment – and directly addressing disruptions that have occurred during the COVID-19 crisis as a result of trade flows’ reliance on paper documents.

Although the impact of the pandemic on the workplace has accelerated the adoption of digital technologies, significant barriers to digitizing commerce-related processes remain. Legacy legal frameworks often force companies to use paper documents in cross-border transactions to comply with local legal requirements. while the cost implications of siled – and often incompatible – industry initiatives deter micro, small and medium-sized enterprises from adopting digital systems.

In this regard, DSI will leverage ICC’s independence, integrity and convening power to drive the harmonization of digital processes across the trading ecosystem, enabling convergence of both industry systems and applicable regulatory frameworks. The initiative will be launched through open and inclusive consultations with industry groups, companies and technical experts from the ICC network in more than 130 countries – and in partnership with key international institutions and governments.

The DSI reflects this multi-stakeholder approach and has been operationalized thanks to seed funding provided by the Government of Singapore and the Asian Development Bank.

ICC Secretary General John WH Denton AO said:

“COVID-19 has highlighted the inherent fragility of global trade’s reliance on paper-based processes. A resilient post-crisis recovery must be built on the deep digitalization of the global trading ecosystem – a process we believe the ICC Digital Standards Initiative is uniquely positioned to advance. As many small businesses struggle to weather the impact of the pandemic, we see an absolute need to accelerate our work with partners within the DSI to ensure digital technologies can truly democratize access to global markets.”

The initiative is managed from ICC’s Singapore headquarters and the organization today announced the appointment of Oswald Kuyler as Managing Director of DSI after an extensive search process. Mr. Kuyler comes to ICC from BHP, the world’s largest diversified mining company, where he led a number of initiatives in blockchain technologies, electronic documentation in trade finance, data analytics and process automation, most recently in the role of Head of Data Strategy.

Further hires will be made to expand the Singapore-based DSI team led by Mr. Kuyler over the coming months.

Operationalizing the initiative, Gina Lim, Director of Financing Ecosystem Development at Enterprise Singapore said:

“The Covid-19 pandemic has underlined the importance of digitizing trade. The DSI will help accelerate the digitization of global trade by developing open digital trade standards. We are pleased that this initiative has now started its global activities in Singapore under the leadership of ICC.”

Steven Beck, Head of Trade and Supply Chain Finance at Asian Development Bank added:

“Digitalization is critical to strengthening the global trade and supply chains that create jobs, development and prosperity. ADB is excited to partner with ICC and the Government of Singapore to create the digital standards and protocols needed to achieve this important goal.”

* * * * *

Sign up here for DSI news alerts and invitations to future calls.