Spiko and Concordium to Disrupt $300B Global Trade Finance Industry

In a bold move to modernize and tokenize trade finance, Spiko and Concordium announced a strategic partnership with focus on turning idle capital into returns.

Global trade remains hamstrung by antiquated infrastructure, weighted by paper-heavy processes, multi-day settlement cycles, and layers of costly intermediaries. These inefficiencies don’t just slow down commerce; they lock up billions in capital that could otherwise be used for growth. Spiko, a Paris-based fintech, and Europe’s first UCITS-compliant tokenized money market fund provider, and the world’s biggest outside the US, is teaming up with Concordium, a Layer-1 blockchain purpose-built for enterprise-grade payment finance (PayFi), to bring 24/7 capital flows and programmable yield-bearing money to the snail execution mode of trade finance.

Backed by a powerhouse of Series A investors, including Index Ventures, the founder of Revolut, and Blackstone’s co-CIO, Spiko is rapidly scaling its infrastructure. This partnership follows Spiko’s recent integration with Chainlink, further strengthening its position at the intersection of DeFi and institutional finance.

Instant. Borderless. And Always On.

At the core of this partnership is a powerful vision: capital should move as instantly and freely as data on the internet. By integrating Spiko’s tokenized, yield-bearing fund shares with Concordium’s identity verification and programmable blockchain infrastructure, the two companies are building a system where payments happen around the clock, in real-time, from anywhere, and without the traditional need for escrow.

What would this play out in the real world? In practice, this means a European pharmaceutical company, for example, shipping vaccines to a distributor in Southeast Asia no longer needs to lock millions in escrow in a dormant third-party account while waiting for the goods to be delivered. Instead, the buyer’s funds could be held in a tokenized money market fund, earning returns while waiting for settlement. Once the agreed-upon delivery milestones are met — tracked, traced and verified through Concordium’s built-in identity layer — payments are released automatically via programmable logic, ensuring compliance, capital efficiency, and removing the requirement for an escrow solution or intermediary. The result: faster access to working capital, no dormant funds, and trust enforced not by paperwork and third parties, but by verifiable and transparent code.

‍

“This partnership brings programmable settlement to the heart of trade finance. We’re replacing idle escrow accounts with smart, yield-generating infrastructure that lets capital stay active until the exact moment it’s needed.” – Paul-Adrien Hyppolite, CEO of Spiko.

‍

Disrupting the Backbone of Global Trade

The partnership launches with a focus on Europe, targeting high-value transactions in industries such as pharmaceuticals and oil. A memorandum of understanding has already been signed with a major trade finance partner, with deals expected to exceed tens of millions of dollars.

But the ambitions go far beyond regional optimization. Over the next few years, Spiko and Concordium plan to address the $2.5 trillion global trade finance gap that continues to limit access to capital for SMEs and emerging markets. By removing friction, lowering costs, and ensuring round-the-clock liquidity, this partnership is poised to unlock opportunity at scale.

Capital That Never Sleeps

Spiko, which has already processed over $1 billion in working capital since launching in mid-2024, is known for combining regulatory rigor with cutting-edge tokenization. With over $400 million in assets under management and more than 1,000 businesses onboarded, – many of which are from the traditional finance industry – it has quickly become a global leader in the tokenized MMF space.

Integrating with Concordium enables Spiko to pair compliance-ready infrastructure with 24/7 liquidity. What’s more, Spiko can issue yield-bearing fund shares natively on-chain using Concordium’s Protocol-Level Tokens (PLTs), which bypass the need for smart contracts and the security risks associated with them. Essentially, this architecture enables institutional-grade safety and execution, where assets are transparently held, programmable by design, and legally defensible.

For buyers, this set up means no need for an escrow agent. Capital is locked, fully verifiable on-chain, generating over 4% yield in tokenized MMFs, depending on the currency, right up until the moment of delivery. Locking up funds in idle third-party accounts will be a thing of the past, as capital will remain productive and instantly releasable upon fulfillment of pre-agreed conditions. And as funds are locked only in verified wallets, there are no intermediaries, no redundant reconciliations, and no room for fraud or impersonation risks.

For traders and suppliers this model reduces cash flow pressure, minimizes counterparty risks, and significantly reduces third-party dependencies on costly credit lines or factoring. As settlement conditions are enforced automatically and transparently on-chain, operations are derisked from counterfeit goods and unreliable counterparties.

Toward A Frictionless Financial Future

This collaboration marks a significant step toward the convergence of TradFi and DeFi, and a foundational shift in how global finance operates. Tokenized money market funds coupled with Concordium’s programmable Smart Money features and compliance-ready infrastructure, not only promises a faster, safer, and more efficient financial pipeline, it sets the bar high for the future of PayFi and digital finance.

Learn more about TMMFs on Concordium.