Governance in the era of Blockchain technology in Qatar: a roadmap and a manual for Trade Finance

Nations worldwide have sought to capitalize on the benefits of distributed ledger technology (DLT) including Blockchain, but struggled to strike a balance between encouraging investment and innovation in the technology while addressing the challenges and uncertainties through regulation. Through its FinTech (Financial Technology) Strategy, Qatar has sought to embrace DLT, but its regulatory approach also remains cautious. Trade Finance is an ideal business process to be disrupted through the benefits of DLT and especially Blockchain technology, since its processes remain antiquated, inefficient and lack digitization. Blockchain as a form of DLT particularly offers the Trade Finance process not only more rapid, secure, cost-effective and efficient procedures, but importantly completely assures trust between importers and exporters and removes the requirement to place such trust in third-party intermediaries. Qatar can reap considerable economic benefits through the enhancement of its Trade Finance regulations enabling the adoption of such Blockchain technology. As such, the authors propose a roadmap and manual for the governance of the Trade Finance Blockchain ecosystem in Qatar. The authors propose multi-layered governance approach to the regulation of Blockchain in Qatar by (1) embracing international regulations and standards; (2) replicating foreign regional and national rules that are appropriate and innovative; and (3) applying sandbox regulations to Blockchain products and services.