Re: [projectvrm] R3 and TradeIX develop open account trade finance DLT business network – R3

[Doc Searls < >]

Thanks, John. Good one. I’ll put the link up here:

> <https://www.r3.com/blog/2017/09/26/r3-and-tradeix-develop-open-account-trade-finance-dlt-business-network/>


Scroll down...

> On Oct 6, 2017, at 9:14 AM, John Wunderlich 
> <
 >
>  wrote:
> 
> Buzzword bingo alert:
> 
> "The initial development phase involves creating standard trade finance 
> smart contracts on a distributed ledger infrastructure. This provides 
> secure and automated financing of supply chain using a single record for 
> critical trade data including identities, purchase orders, invoices, 
> shipping and logistics information, trade assets, financing activity, 
> credit risk, and more. Following this phase, R3 and TradeIX will engage the 
> broader ecosystem, expanding services and onboarding additional members.”

Another pull quote:

"The business network will also improve access to open account trade for the 
global ecosystem of banks, buyers, suppliers, technology providers, insurers, 
and other parties, such as logistics companies, that are critical to 
facilitating global open account trade flows.”

What about customers—the people who entrust their money and assets to all 
those other parties?

> I note the inclusion of 'identities' in this announcement. This opens up 
> both a VRMy vision of user-initiated transactions that a user could track 
> through the supply chain for validating preferences, be they fair trade, 
> country avoidance, lowest cost etc.

This is a great opportunity, and thanks for bringing it up. I hope some of us 
will visit and work on that on VRM Day and at IIW.

<http://vrmday2017b.eventbrite.com>
<https://iiw25.eventbrite.com/>

> That's if the supply chain places the user/customer at the centre. i.e. Not 
> likely when implemented by banks and trade organizations. A more likely 
> scenario is user tracking, targetting, exploitation, and surveillance.

Exactly. That’s the default here in the U.S. and there is plenty of overhang 
in the EU, even with the GDPR looming.

> This will be the case even if the end user has full visibility of their 
> order. Unless and until the power imbalance created by centralized pools of 
> capital and individual customers, even self-sovereign identities can be 
> subjected to this kind of exploitation.

Exactly, again. 

Our job is to equip customers (not just “consumers,” or “end users”) to say 
“We’re not just at the same table with you guys. We *are* that table. And we 
are much bigger and far more powerful than you can ever make us separately 
and on your own."

There are enough people already arguing that more policy is the answer. Or 
that we need a new Google or Facebook to fight the incumbents. And we have 
the policy we need for leverage, in the GDPR. Let’s use that leverage to 
point to our own customer-empowering solutions, in some cases to exactly the 
kind of bad acting that arises out of the mentality we see in this piece.

Doc