Westpac has signed up as the first Australian bank user of the bolero.net trade finance platform.
One of the first customers to work with Westpac on its bolero.net implementation programme will be Hamersley Iron, part of the giant Rio Tinto Zinc (RTZ) mining group.
Created by the world's logistics and financial communities, bolero.net allows for the exchange of trade data and documents over the Internet. Head of Westpac's global transaction services, Simon Narroway, says: "Westpac has been one of the early proponents of electronic delivery of trade transactions in Australia through ImpEx, an online international trade banking system launched in August 1999."
Narroway says the bolero.net infrastructure will be applied to streamline, standardise and simplify the buy-sell process for a broad set of clients in the e-trade arena. At Hamersley Iron, the bank is exploring ways of integrating the Bolero system into the company's worldwide operations and making its cross-border trading operations more efficient.