London, UK, 10 June, 2026 ⏤ LiquidX was delighted to attend and be a silver sponsor for the 2026 GTR UK Trade and Export Finance Conference.
There were a number of overlapping themes this year, which is understandable considering the global macroeconomic environment:
- Global volatility and UK trade strategy
- Cash flow stress points and optimizing capital
- Pinpointing SME liquidity needs
- Finance and operational tools for supply chain resilience
- Digital trade finance solutions
- A trade outlook for UK global exports
GTR UK is a high-impact gathering that provides a dynamic platform for over 500 delegates to engage with the latest market developments and trends in an increasingly complex global trade environment.
Like last year, everyone benefits from expert-led panel discussions and in-depth sessions, featuring insights from around 50 distinguished speakers.
The agenda assesses the growing suite of global trade stress points, including macroeconomic pressures, tariff disruption and supply chain resilience, tailored credit and liquidity tools, and the digital transformation of trade.
We were very pleased to attend GTR UK 2026, the essential gathering where market intelligence meets real-world networking.
LiquidX Panel Participation: Scaling UK Digital Trade
The UK, like other countries, is still struggling to implement a completely digital approach to digital trade and paperless trade finance.
While policy and regulatory barriers remain a bottleneck for UK exporters, the embrace of paperless trade is an example of how UK leadership in digitization is helping to bypass some of the hurdles inherent in traditional trade systems.
Recent pilots continue to underscore the benefits of streamlined trade processes, cost efficiency, and the overlap between digital trade and UK market diversification.
This panel took a long-term outlook on UK trade digitization, examining the core scale barriers to paperless trade and the priorities for leveraging policy, FI and industry coordination.
The following points were discussed by everyone on the panel:
- Trade cycle hitches: Digital bills of lading, warehouse receipts and developing greater cross-controls and transparency for stakeholders across the financing journey.
- A stocktake of pilot schemes, recent onboarding examples, and how paperless trade transactions (more information below) have reduced friction, unlocked working capital, and enabled new market entry.
- Steps that industry leaders, including large corporates, global FIs, and fintechs, can take to collaborate, overcome scale barriers, and develop greater risk management capabilities with digital and automated tools.
- What steps can bank and fintech providers take to simplify onboarding processes?
- With risks such as fraud and trade compliance magnified by the proliferation of digital documents, how can AI and more intelligence-led solutions improve workflow efficiency and mitigate pain points in paperless trade?
- Enabling UK global trade: Priorities for a digital-first export strategy to unlock trade diversification and interlocks with high-growth, digitally aligned markets.
Here’s the panel: Fahad Noor (Cleareye.ai), Joel Schrevens (China Systems), Dimitrios Ntalianis (LiquidX), Jon Boran (Lloyds Banking Group), Jane Cullen (Jointine Products (Lincoln) Ltd) and Ofer Ein Bar (WaveBL).
UK Paperless Digital Pilot Schemes Success
As mentioned above, the UK government, in partnership with industry leaders and academic institutions, has been pioneering completely digital, paperless trade pilot schemes.
The technology behind these schemes is similar to that of our Digitize solution.
In particular, the UK Department for Business and Trade (DBT) has been working with companies trading between the UK and Japan. This pilot was done alongside schemes launched with Germany and France.
According to the UK DBT, “documentary credit checks performed by banks – which commonly take up to ten days – were reduced to just one hour.”
“Businesses taking part saw cost savings from eliminating paper-based shipping documents, reduced administrative burdens through faster, automated processes, and greater efficiency across their supply chains.”
Naturally, the success of these pilots and the prevalence of similar solutions across the TradeTech SaaS ecosystem show how much the sector needs end-to-end digitization.
UK Minister for the Digital Economy Liz Lloyd said:
“This pilot shows how digital trade can deliver real, tangible benefits for UK exporters – helping businesses move goods faster and with greater confidence.
By working closely with partners in Japan and complementing our promising digital trade corridors with France and Germany, the UK is demonstrating global leadership in making trade cheaper, faster and more secure through innovation.”
Professor David Hughes, Coordinator of the Digital Trade Testbed at Teesside University, said:
“What matters now is turning successful demonstrations into repeatable, day-to-day processes so businesses of all sizes can scale, trade with confidence, and realize the benefits of digital trade across the UK–Japan corridor.”
For more information, here is the full report.
It’s clear from the talk and the pilots undertaken in the UK, France, Germany, and Japan that a digital-first export strategy is the way forward.
What’s needed more now than ever is an awareness of the technology that already exists. This needs to be at every level, from SMEs through to the financial institutions (FIs), export finance, and asset managers.
We’ve been busy recently. Take a look at what else we’ve been publishing and what’s in our product roadmap:
LiquidX at BAFT 2026: Trade finance in transition
LiquidX global trade finance SaaS product roadmap
TradeHub 2.0: Banks, FIs, and Asset Managers: Improving Data Visibility and Transparency
Banks and asset managers: To request a demo of our end-to-end trade finance software solutions, click here.