Trade and Investment
One year in, TWIN is making inroads on three continents: processing 184,000+ invoices through TLIP in Africa, trialed across UK border infrastructure, and powering trade finance and supply chain visibility initiatives in Europe, and laying the groundwork for enhanced transparency for trade in Asia.
Every day, goods move across borders. Ships sail, trucks roll, planes take off. But behind the scenes, trade is still running on paper.
A single cross-border transaction can involve up to 30 different stakeholders, 36 documents, and up to 240 paper copies in circulation. The results are delays, errors, spiraling costs, and cargo that stands still while the world keeps moving.
TWIN launched in May 2025 to change that. TWIN is the trusted trade network: a global digital infrastructure powered by distributed ledger technology, TWIN connects every participant in the supply chain so that data moves with goods, identity is verifiable, and access to international markets is open to all.
We've put together a short explainer video that walks through the problem, the technology, and the vision, in plain language, in under two minutes.
Discover TWIN
A year on from our launch, here's what's happening.
TWIN also powers Salus, a trade finance platform focused on critical minerals in Rwanda, Nigeria, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. TWIN provides the identity layer, allowing every participant in the supply chain, from miners to transporters to funders, to be uniquely identified and verified without relying on a central authority.
And TWIN is the technological foundation that inspires ADAPT, the Africa Digital Access and Public Infrastructure for Trade initiative led by the African Continental Free Trade Area Secretariat together with the World Economic Forum, Tony Blair Institute for Global Change and the IOTA Foundation. ADAPT aims to connect all African nations and 1.5 billion people through a single digital trade infrastructure by 2035.
In the UK, momentum is accelerating. TWIN is integrated into the Teesside Digital Trade Testbed, which will connect TWIN with solutions like autonomous vehicles and geo-locating devices, and real-world deployment at Teesside’s seaport and airport. Later this year, TWIN will go live across several major UK port systems, collectively covering the majority of UK maritime trade and food imports.
In Europe, TWIN technology is involved in three further initiatives: the Virtual Watch Tower, a global network of supply chain monitoring hubs; RESULD, which digitizes plant-based product trade from Kenya to the Port of Rotterdam; and MISSION, an EU Horizon-funded project optimizing maritime traffic to reduce port congestion and fuel consumption.
Conversations are also underway with governments across Asia to rollout pilot projects around digital verification infrastructure in the near future. Watch this space!
Every day, goods move across borders. Ships sail, trucks roll, planes take off. But behind the scenes, trade is still running on paper.
A single cross-border transaction can involve up to 30 different stakeholders, 36 documents, and up to 240 paper copies in circulation. The results are delays, errors, spiraling costs, and cargo that stands still while the world keeps moving.
TWIN launched in May 2025 to change that. TWIN is the trusted trade network: a global digital infrastructure powered by distributed ledger technology, TWIN connects every participant in the supply chain so that data moves with goods, identity is verifiable, and access to international markets is open to all.
We've put together a short explainer video that walks through the problem, the technology, and the vision, in plain language, in under two minutes.
Discover TWIN A year on from our launch, here's what's happening.
Traction across three continents
TWIN technology is the basis of TLIP, the East African trade logistics platform developed with TradeMark Africa, which is currently preparing for its full public launch later this year. Since it was first initiated, TLIP has processed over 184,000 commercial invoices, received 328,000 declarations, and issued more than 2,000 export certificates. Flower exporters including Maasai Flowers, Equator Flowers, and AgriFlora are among its key users.TWIN also powers Salus, a trade finance platform focused on critical minerals in Rwanda, Nigeria, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. TWIN provides the identity layer, allowing every participant in the supply chain, from miners to transporters to funders, to be uniquely identified and verified without relying on a central authority.
And TWIN is the technological foundation that inspires ADAPT, the Africa Digital Access and Public Infrastructure for Trade initiative led by the African Continental Free Trade Area Secretariat together with the World Economic Forum, Tony Blair Institute for Global Change and the IOTA Foundation. ADAPT aims to connect all African nations and 1.5 billion people through a single digital trade infrastructure by 2035.
In the UK, momentum is accelerating. TWIN is integrated into the Teesside Digital Trade Testbed, which will connect TWIN with solutions like autonomous vehicles and geo-locating devices, and real-world deployment at Teesside’s seaport and airport. Later this year, TWIN will go live across several major UK port systems, collectively covering the majority of UK maritime trade and food imports.
In Europe, TWIN technology is involved in three further initiatives: the Virtual Watch Tower, a global network of supply chain monitoring hubs; RESULD, which digitizes plant-based product trade from Kenya to the Port of Rotterdam; and MISSION, an EU Horizon-funded project optimizing maritime traffic to reduce port congestion and fuel consumption.
Conversations are also underway with governments across Asia to rollout pilot projects around digital verification infrastructure in the near future. Watch this space!
What the pilots proved
Early results from the pilots are demonstrating what is possible when trade goes digital, secure, flexible, and fair for all participants. In Kenya-UK export pilots involving TLIP, trade documents that previously took 8 hours (air freight) or 3 weeks (sea freight) to become available were made accessible in under 5 minutes and visible to UK border officials 3 weeks before goods arrived. In the UK, TWIN was trialed as part of the government's Border Trade Demonstrators (involving the UK Cabinet Office, Suffolk Coastal Port Health Authority, and the Chartered Institute of Export & International Trade), digitizing documentation for around 2,000 consignments of chilled poultry from Poland and delivering supply chain data to border authorities up to 20 hours earlier than before.What comes next
By 2030, TWIN aims to be adopted in over 30 countries, connecting national trade systems, port authorities, logistics platforms, and financial institutions into a single, interoperable digital network. For the SMEs and smallholder exporters who have long found international trade too costly, too complex, or simply inaccessible, that network represents something more fundamental: a chance to reach global markets on equal terms.
The goal is a world where every participant in global trade, large or small, in Nairobi or Newcastle, has access to the same trusted digital infrastructure, and where the paperwork never slows down the movement of goods.