Commodities technology house of the year: VERIDAPT

In a year that saw global energy market volatility spike around recurring outbreaks of Covid-19, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and fears over rising global inflation and interest rates, VERIDAPT’s breakthroughs in digitised transparency and risk mitigation proved instrumental in securing the 2022 Energy Risk Asia award for Commodities technology house of the year. This is the second consecutive year VERIDAPT has won this prestigious award.

David Thambiratnam, VERIDAPT

An Internet of Things and fintech company, VERIDAPT continues to hone its commodities monitoring and management solutions to stop theft and fraud, improve efficiencies and track emissions. Importantly, the company is expanding its unique digital platform beyond an impressive base of top-tier mining and rail markets to commodities producers, traders and financiers, and logistics and collateral managers. All of these require maximum transparency and security across energy, agricultural and metals commodities, and transparency, security and easily accessible data in real time are at the heart of VERIDAPT’s technology.

In 2022, VERIDAPT provided the missing component to allow SGTraDex, a Singaporean public-private partnership, to reduce commodities fraud to activate its highly digitised, secure platform. VERIDAPT’s unique platform advantage is its live integration with SGTraDex technology to leverage additional platform services and industry ecosystems, enhancing liquidity and new business in the energy sector. The VERIDAPT/SGTraDex partnership gives all parties full transparency in every transaction, with a clear understanding of where the deal stands. This ensures all information is derived from a verifiable source. Importantly, users are given access to the Singapore Trade Finance Registry and TradeTrust to address the very real concern of double financing.

“The partnership opens the door for expansion into other cross-industry digitisation opportunities, such as transportation, bunkering and demurrage,” says VERIDAPT’s chief executive officer, David Thambiratnam.

Antoine Cadoux, chief executive officer of SGTraDex, says: “Digitalisation has transformed many sectors but, in the global supply chain and trade sector, its promise has yet to materialise.” He adds: “The physical exchange of paper remains the norm, and I believe this partnership between VERIDAPT’s DealFlow and SGTraDex’s platform will eventually reduce reliance on paper exchanges.”

The VERIDAPT/SGTraDex partnership arose in response to the high number of fraudulent transactions in the energy trade sector, which led to a call for a digitised, integrated solution that would provide greater transparency, verification and data flow.

In fact, fraud and energy trading reached a peak in 2020, underscored by hundreds of millions of dollars in losses caused by Hin Leong and ZenRock. This triggered a mass retreat in financing that left many small to medium-sized oil trading companies short on liquidity. Several of the world’s big trading companies subsequently introduced SGTraDex to VERIDAPT.

“Our goal at SGTraDex is to enable global trade to happen more quickly, more reliably and with higher integrity,” says Cadoux. “Our partnership with VERIDAPT supports our vision.”

After four months of negotiations and trials, the VERIDAPT/SGTraDex partnership launched its first solution in Singapore in July at a major banking town hall focused on the energy sector.

Having long been a leader in the digital revolution in inventory monitoring and reconciliation, VERIDAPT’s real-time technology delivers unprecedented measurement and visibility of bulk commodities in silos, tanks or stockpiles through the platform. The company’s hardware is designed to operate under the world’s most extreme weather conditions, and all field devices are engineered as ‘plug and play’ so they can be installed and running within a couple of hours.

In parallel with this, VERIDAPT’s secure cloud-based software delivers up-to-the-second monitoring and measurement data that is accessible 24/7. This allows for continuous and automatic quantity and quality reassurance and reconciliation. This VERIDAPT solution also allows for easy document drag and drop from emails, instant notification to stakeholders when actions are required or when milestones are achieved, and instant notification when important documents, such as certificates of quantity and bills of lading, have been provided. The solution further allows for the creation of chat rooms for designated parties to communicate securely, and for seamless approval processes, as well as the reviewing of certificates of quantity and confirmation of volumes with VERIDAPT’s real-time monitoring and reconciliation data.

Testament to the unique appeal of VERIDAPT technology is that, in the past year, Macquarie Group deployed the company’s platform across its international commodities financing network, providing unprecedented transparency and security of all data throughout deal lifecycles. This expertise in energy and commodities originates on VERIDAPT’s part from monitoring billions of litres in hydrocarbon consumption for the world’s biggest mining and rail companies, including BHP, Rio Tinto, Glencore and Aurizon. The platform is integral to assisting VERIDAPT’s customers in reaching net-zero targets and environmental, social and corporate governance goals by tracking emissions in real time down to the point of production.

With more than 80 VERIDAPT installations currently deployed worldwide, the company monitors upwards of USD6 billion worth of commodities annually, plus 16 million tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions. It also boasts zero customer churn and enjoys year-on-year revenue growth with each of its blue-chip customers.

“Our clients have a lot at stake, and we’ve not lost one in 15 years – in fact, 75% ask us to solve more of their problems once they see what we can do,” says Thambiratnam. “The need to bridge the physical and the digital across energy and all commodities has never been greater, and we at VERIDAPT are proud to be recognised with this prestigious award from Energy Risk Asia for our role in bringing greater transparency to commodities markets.”

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