Beyond the PDF: Building trust into the future of global trade

For more than a decade, organizations across the global trade industry have invested heavily in digitizing trade processes. Yet many trade transactions are still slowed by manual processing, disconnected systems and unnecessary risk. The problem isn't a lack of technology. It's a lack of trusted, interoperable data.

That challenge is reflected in CGI's 2026 Voice of Our Clients research. While 88% of corporate and transaction banking leaders say technology and digital acceleration are having a high impact on their organizations, fewer than half (47%) say their digitization strategy is delivering the expected results. Closing that gap requires more than digitizing documents. It requires trusted data that organizations can exchange confidently across the trade ecosystem.

Scanning and converting documents into PDFs was an important first step in modernizing trade finance, improving efficiency and reducing reliance on paper. Yet a PDF is still just a digital copy of a physical document. The information it contains often must be extracted, re-entered into multiple systems and verified manually before it can be used.

The next phase of digital trade requires moving beyond document images to trusted structured data that enables organizations to exchange verified information consistently across systems and organizations.

This is the foundation of trusted trade. It reduces risk, improves efficiency and supports more seamless cross-border trade.

Building a supply chain of trust

Just as goods move through a coordinated global supply chain, the data and trust that accompany them must move seamlessly as well.

Today, organizations often review, re-enter and verify the same trade data each time a shipment changes hands or a new party joins the transaction. Whether it's a bank, a customs authority or a buyer, each participant repeats much of the same work to confirm that the information is accurate. This duplication slows transaction processing, increases costs and creates friction throughout the trade ecosystem.

Trusted trade replaces this repetitive process with a simple principle: verify once, use many. Digital signatures, cryptographic technologies and supportive legal frameworks make it possible to verify information at its source and carry that proof throughout the transaction life cycle. Once verified, information such as an organization's identity or an employee’s authority to sign an invoice can be securely shared and reused by multiple parties, eliminating the need for repeated manual verification.

Digital identity: Establishing trust at the source

A trusted trade ecosystem depends on knowing exactly who you are doing business with and confirming that the instructing party is authorized to act on behalf of their organization.

For banks, corporates and other trade participants, verifying a counterparty has always been essential. Yet establishing an organization's legal identity and confirming that the individual signing an agreement is authorized to do so often remains a manual, time-consuming process. While many organizations have transitioned from paper-based processes to digital services, they continue to operate on a model of assumed trust, relying on usernames, passwords and one-time passcodes (OTPs) to establish identity. Without a higher level of assurance, organizations remain exposed to fraud, compliance risks and operational delays.

Digital identity addresses this critical gap by shifting the security model from assumed to verifiable trust. The legal entity identifier (LEI) provides a globally recognized means of verifying an organization's identity. Combined with the verifiable LEI (vLEI), it enables a standardized, cryptographically secure and automated way to verify both an organization’s identity and the authority of individuals acting on its behalf.

The result is greater confidence in every digital transaction. Participants can verify counterparties, confirm signing authority and reduce reliance on manual checks. That not only reduces risk but also makes digital trade faster, more transparent and easier to scale.

Breaking down digital islands: Connecting the trade ecosystem

Secure data and trusted digital identities are essential, but they are only part of the solution. Trade also depends on systems exchanging information with one another.

Today, many organizations operate on separate technology platforms that were never designed to work together. A shipping company's system may not easily exchange data with a bank's platform or integrate seamlessly with customs authorities or other trade participants. These disconnected systems create digital islands that limit the benefits of digitization.

The answer is not to move everyone onto the same platform. It's to adopt common data standards that allow different systems to communicate and exchange trusted information.

Organizations such as the International Chamber of Commerce's Digital Standards Initiative (ICC DSI) are helping advance this work by promoting globally recognized trade data standards. Just as the internet relies on shared protocols to connect billions of devices, digital trade depends on common standards that allow information to move consistently across organizations, industries and borders. A digital invoice created in Brazil, for example, should be interpreted the same way by a financial institution in Singapore. That level of interoperability gives organizations the flexibility to choose the technology that best meets their needs while enabling trusted data to flow across the broader trade ecosystem.

Turning trusted trade into reality

The transition from digital trade to trusted trade requires more than new technologies. Organizations will need to adopt common standards, strengthen digital identity and enable trusted data to move securely across the trade ecosystem. The building blocks already exist. The next step is broader industry adoption and collaboration.

Every stakeholder has a role to play:

• Corporate leaders and boards: Treat digital trade as a business transformation initiative, not just an IT project. Support the use of globally recognized identifiers, such as the LEI, and strengthen vendor onboarding and due diligence with trusted digital identity.
• Banks and financial institutions: Move beyond document digitization by embedding global data and identity standards into client and trade finance processes. Doing so can reduce manual intervention, improve compliance and create new opportunities for automation and financing.
• Technology providers: Build solutions on open, interoperable standards rather than proprietary ecosystems. Organizations benefit most when trusted data can move securely between platforms without creating new digital silos.
• Governments and regulators: Continue advancing legal and regulatory frameworks that recognize digital trade records and trusted digital identities while supporting secure cross-border data exchange.

Across the industry, the focus has shifted from digitizing trade to building trusted, interoperable trade ecosystems. I'll be exploring this topic during the panel session at Sibos 2026 in Miami, "From digital trade to trusted trade," and look forward to hearing how organizations across the industry are approaching this next phase of transformation.

I'd welcome the opportunity to discuss how your organization is approaching trusted trade and the next phase of digital transformation. Please reach out if you’d like to continue the conversation.