HSBC and Tradeshift, the world's largest business commerce platform, will launch a jointly owned venture that will enable businesses and their suppliers to trade more smoothly using embedded finance solutions and financial services apps.

As part of the deal, HSBC will make a $35 million investment into Tradeshift in two stages and will join its board.

The agreement is part of a funding, round which is expected to raise a minimum of $70 million from HSBC and other investors, the bank said in a statement.

The digital solutions that will be deployed across the platforms include: Payment and fintech services embedded into trade as well as e-commerce and marketplace experiences.

Barry O'Byrne, CEO of Global Commercial Banking at HSBC, said: “This agreement supports our strategy of being a digital first bank, which includes our commitment to partnering with fintechs and embedding our solutions into the platforms of others.”

HSBC supports around 1.3 million businesses worldwide and is the world’s largest trade bank, facilitating over $800 billion of trade flows annually. Tradeshift supports over $260 billion of annual gross merchandise value for a million business users on its platform, the statement said.

The London-headquartered HSBC, which has a market value of $162 billion posted a pretax profit of $21.7 billion for the first six months of 2023, versus $9.2 billion a year earlier.

(Writing by Seban Scaria; editing by Daniel Luiz)

(seban.scaria@lseg.com)