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POSCO International, South Korea's largest trading company with $22.2 billion in revenue across steel, energy and battery materials, completed a transaction that converted real trade receivables into digital assets on an Avalanche-based blockchain network built by asset-backed finance technology firm Intain. The firm's U.S. arm worked with trade finance platform Olea on the deal, which used AI to reconcile invoices, purchase orders, credit notes and shipping documents before recording the receivable on a shared Layer-1 ledger.
Why it matters
Trade receivables represent money owed to a company after goods are delivered but before the customer pays, and they typically serve as collateral for short-term borrowing. Reconciling the records held by buyers, sellers and banks is a paperwork-heavy process that slows financing and ties up working capital. Putting the receivable on a shared blockchain ledger creates a single source of truth for ownership and status, potentially cutting reconciliation friction and giving corporates faster access to liquidity.
The deal follows POSCO International's pilot last month with LG CNS to issue, transfer and settle tokenized receivables on Injective, using receivables generated from real trade between POSCO's overseas subsidiaries and their counterparties. POSCO, Olea and Intain said they plan to explore stablecoin-based cross-border settlements and digital treasury tools as tokenization expands deeper into trade finance.
Market impact
The experiments mark a notable expansion of tokenization beyond the funds and bonds that have dominated the real-world-asset conversation to date. POSCO operates more than 80 overseas branches, giving any successful pilot a sizable internal pipeline of receivables to push on-chain. For Avalanche, the deal adds an institutional-grade trade finance use case to a network that has been courting enterprise tokenization with custom appchains. The bigger read for the RWA sector: corporates are increasingly testing blockchain rails for payments, collateral and trade flows, where faster settlement and shared records could free up working capital locked in legacy processes.
Frequently asked questions
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What did POSCO International actually do on Avalanche?
The South Korean trading company completed a transaction that converted real trade receivables into digital assets on an Avalanche-based Layer-1 blockchain built by asset-backed finance technology firm Intain. Intain used AI to reconcile trade documents before recording the receivable on the shared ledger.
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Who partnered with POSCO on the tokenization deal?
POSCO International's U.S. arm worked with trade finance platform Olea and asset-backed finance technology firm Intain. Intain built the Avalanche-based blockchain and handled AI document reconciliation, while Olea contributed the trade finance infrastructure.
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How does tokenizing trade receivables help corporates?
Trade receivables are money owed after goods are delivered but before the customer pays. Putting them on a shared blockchain ledger creates one common record of ownership and status, cutting the paperwork and reconciliation friction that normally slow financing and tie up working capital.
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Is this POSCO's first tokenized trade finance pilot?
No. POSCO International completed a pilot with LG CNS last month to issue, transfer and settle tokenized receivables on Injective, also using receivables generated from live trade between POSCO's overseas subsidiaries and their counterparties.
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What comes next for the POSCO, Olea and Intain partnership?
The companies said they plan to explore further tokenized trade finance applications, including stablecoin-based cross-border settlement and digital treasury tools, as tokenization expands deeper into trade finance workflows.
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