Trade finance remains one of the largest but least fully digitalised parts of global banking. Despite decades of initiatives, many processes still rely on paper, stamps and seals. At Sibos Frankfurt 2025, held in Deutsche Bank’s home city, Boris Ivanov, Global Head of Documentary Trade and CEO of Central and Eastern Europe at Deutsche Bank, reflected on lessons learned from 25 years of digitisation efforts, outlined the main frictions still facing banks and corporates, and described how Deutsche Bank is preparing for tokenised distribution, richer data and innovation in documentary trade.

Long-standing frictions in digitising trade

Ivanov said that “maybe the frictions are the same like they were many years ago.” Deutsche Bank began experimenting with digitising trade 25 years ago, but back then “the technology was not there.” Even today, distributed ledger technology (DLT) and application programming interfaces (APIs) have evolved unevenly across customs authorities and jurisdictions. This “compatibility and interoperability” problem, combined with fragmented system development, remains the first major barrier to fully digital trade finance.

A second barrier is the legal framework. Ivanov noted that while some countries now recognise electronic documents, “we have still a lot of legal systems and requirements which are purely paper based… there are even countries that are still on, not only on stamps, but they want a seal.” To achieve true global scale, banks need instruments “legally compatible to all the countries in the world.”

The third barrier is cost, especially for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) which Ivanov called “the backbone… of trade.” Many current solutions are “too costly” for them, and trust must be built gradually. Deutsche Bank has responded by developing “a very modular and flexible system of different tiles that you can put to one system,” but he stressed that affordable, standardised digitalisation is still necessary to achieve end-to-end processing.

ESG and compliance as non-negotiable

Asked about new requirements around sustainability and anti-money laundering (AML) or anti-fraud controls, Ivanov said environmental, social and governance (ESG) factors are already “embedded in our processes” at “the highest standards that the bank has set itself.” Compliance, however, is “the hardest piece within the process to get digitised” because regulations and sanctions change frequently. “Usually you start first manually, then you’re automating. But this is a must. This is non-negotiable.” He added that rising tariffs and geopolitical uncertainty are “triggering much stronger digitisation” because “manually will be too slow, too expensive.”

Moving from buy-and-hold to tokenised distribution

Ivanov observed that trade finance has traditionally been a “buy and hold” product on bank balance sheets. With trade volumes expanding, “distribution became key,” and Deutsche Bank “invested very early” to become “one of the key players” in trade asset distribution. The next step, he said, will “most probably” be tokenisation, which would allow trade assets to be distributed to smaller investors, not just large institutions. This reflects a broader trend at Sibos of exploring real-world asset tokenisation as a way to increase liquidity.

Data standards and rich information for trade

Although ISO 20022 is often discussed in the context of payments, Ivanov stressed that “rich data is equally important for trade as well.” He said “data management is key” and starts “at the beginning” with digital access channels. “The more digital you become at the beginning…the better your data quality becomes in the whole system, and you can derive much more out of it.” Deutsche Bank is therefore working heavily to make its trade finance access channels “as much digital as possible.”

Innovation in Central and Eastern Europe

Ivanov also commented on regional innovation. Contrary to assumptions, he said “some of the countries in Eastern Europe are more digitised than Western Europe” because they adopted newer technology later and leapfrogged legacy systems. Governmental processes are often already digital, while Western Europe faces more constraints from data protection and legacy infrastructures. Deutsche Bank, he said, has “quite a big budget” and is “driving this transformation” to stay at the forefront.

Leading affordable, standardised digital trade

Ivanov’s remarks show that while technology has advanced dramatically, the success of digital trade finance depends on interoperable systems, global legal recognition, affordability for SMEs and seamless ESG and compliance checks. By investing in modular platforms, rich data, tokenised distribution and regional innovation, Deutsche Bank aims to lead the industry in transforming trade finance into a standardised, accessible and data-rich ecosystem.