Antwerp diamond industry embraces financial innovation
The Antwerp World Diamond Centre (AWDC) has signed a cooperation agreement with two companies from FinTech, the fast growing market of cutting edge high-tech for the financial industry. They both offer an efficient alternative for traditional international payments.
Soon an Uphold office will open in Antwerp: this company will provide diamond traders with an online platform for executing transactions in real time, regardless of the currency. The Belgian payment provider FX4BIZ is also entering the alliance with AWDC and will develop a sustainable financial infrastructure specifically for the diamond industry.
By means of these new forms of cooperation, AWDC expects that Antwerp will continue to differentiate itself as the most important trade centre for diamonds.
It is well known that the international diamond trade is a particularly competitive sector; recently, however, the slowdown in economic growth in China, the second largest export market of polished diamonds after the United States, triggered a severe crisis. In the past year of 2015, Antwerp saw the total value of traded diamonds decrease by no less than 18 percent; competitors in India and Israel, however, have suffered even more.