TRSB maintains open standards for business clearing — the framework which reconnects money and value to bring trust and optimise the velocity of value creation. Business clearing brings together existing standards, no reinventing the wheel. Fixing it, by reusing.
Trade has systemic inefficiencies everywhere: no one can prove invoices are real, capital won't flow without trust, and settlement is slow, risky and expensive. TRSB standards solve all three — in a practical way.
There is no universal verified source of truth for business transactions. It mainly operates in company silos through inefficient communication channels. Any related document can be duplicated, disputed, or misrepresented. This uncertainty results in cost and risk for companies as well as for finance providers, creating unnecessary inefficiencies.
The introduction of e-invoicing, distributed ledger technologies, and capital markets governance.
Bring these together by resolving the gap between law and regulation and technology possibilities — using the governance standards developed for the capital markets that create a verified single source of truth according to law, and warrant equal access and ownership of value created in business.
Valuation should reflect the underlying value, however valuation mechanisms and dispute resolution mechanisms rely on unverified information about current and historic performance — favouring the best presentation instead of the best value. This creates high costs of trust discovery, contracting, and dispute resolution.
The introduction of negotiable instruments, comparison sites and market places.
The standards incorporate dispute resolution mechanisms which provide a balance of power between buyer and supplier — independent of size, background, or wealth.
Whereas payments are increasingly digital and can be made in real time, there is no connection with value. This results in reconciliations, uncertainties, fraud, AML and CFT risks — all of which have to be resolved by companies and financiers themselves. It creates high costs of company administration and informality.
Real-time payment wallets, invoice finance solutions, digital currencies, AI reconciliation tools, ERP automation, API integrations, and others.
Reconnect money and value exchange — removing the cost of company administration by bringing automatic financial fulfilment and accounting to all, removing AML and CFT risk, and eliminating unnecessary costs in the back-offices of financial institutions. Each settlement is Delivery versus Payment Immediate, with continuous netting enabling the optimal use of funds throughout the supply chain.
The Trade Receivable Standards Board uses the term business clearing to describe the set of processes, laws and regulations, and technical infrastructure through which commercial obligations arising from trade — invoices, purchase orders, delivery confirmations — are authenticated, transferred, settled, and extinguished with legal finality.
When a supplier delivers goods or services, they create a receivable: a legal claim on future payment from the buyer. In its most developed form, business clearing transforms that receivable into a dematerialised instrument held in a Central Securities Depository (CSD), transferable by book entry and settled with the same finality as a conventional securities transaction. This transformation has three principal consequences.
First, it registers the commercial record: a government-authenticated electronic invoice becomes the unique, irrefutable source for instrument existence, its terms and conditions and its status, replacing paper, bilateral agreements, and informal acknowledgements.
Second, it secures economic activity and protects all parties in the trade: ensuring getting paid for the value and accessing capital based on value. It creates a commercial incentive for informal enterprises to formalize because of the likelihood of getting paid fairly for the value created.
Third, it accelerates the velocity of money: through immediate DVP (DVP i) settlement and continuous netting, the same capital supports substantially more economic activity. Capital freed from settlement queues and bilateral delays is immediately redeployed in productive investment. Capital waiting in payment accounts can be easily used to benefit from payment discounts or invested in the supply chain itself either directly or through agents.
The TRSB was founded on the principle that access to capital should be determined by the quality of a company's products and services — not solely by the size of its balance sheet or the availability of conventional collateral.
The TRSB maintains open standards for collaborators that define the:
Business clearing is an opportunity because at present the three foundational layers — law and regulation, governance, and technology — are not aligned. Each layer is necessary; none is sufficient alone. The TRSB standard exists precisely at their intersection: writing the standards that bind all three into a coherent, interoperable, and equitable whole.
No society functions without the force of law behind it. The legal layer defines the rights and obligations that establish value. At present for assets generated in the course of doing business, at present, most legislations lack clear and efficient methods to make value created in business, an institutional safe asset with certainty of ownership, that can serve as a valuable collateral. To achieve that there is need for: statutory instrument creation, explicit and presumed acceptance or disconformity handling, holder-in-due-course protection, settlement finality, and the rogation principle. Each jurisdiction can be classified to the extent it has the legislation to make trade safe. The TRSB exchanges model legislative texts in jurisdiction neutral terms that can be used to develop the framework for a jurisdiction.
The legal layer also governs enforcement: what happens at default, how disputes are resolved, and how cross-border interoperability functions.
Business is competing. However, just like in games, there is a requirement for a minimum set of rules that ensure reward is connected to the value created. This is referred to as the collaborative space of society. It requires collaboration of the stakeholders, meaning the private sector and the public sector, to define where collaborative space starts and ends and what the rules are and how these are enforced. At present business regulation is mainly public sector driven.
The capital markets are driven by a private public governance model already exist. This has made the capital markets one of the most international and successful human endeavors. The TRSB standard adapts those laws and regulations and makes them apply also to business.
Under such regulations, a network of Central Securities Depository is the operational heart of a system.
Under existing CSD governance is open, equitable, and subject to regulatory supervision. No single entity can control access to the register. CSD’s do not have freedom and pricing and operate effectively on a cost + basis. CSD regulation allows multiple CSD nodes: however a federation ensure uniqueness of assets.
A CSD operates as a private entity, meaning that any improvement is proposed by the private sector stakeholders. The supervising entities capital market regulators, banks regulators and central banks consistent with CPSS-IOSCO Principles for Financial Market Infrastructures, validate that the CSD complies with the laws and regulations and operates equitable for all stakeholders.
The TRSB framework provides a standard for the manner that the CSD operates for business to optimize the social and economic impact of the CSD network on a national as well as international level.
The technology layer is deliberately agnostic on topology and maximally committed to reuse. A TRSB-aligned CSD may use a conventional database, a distributed system, or anything in between. What matters is the interface, not the implementation. TRSB standards define what systems must be able to do — the APIs, message formats, timing requirements, and data schemas — not how they must do it internally.
Wherever established open protocols, taxonomies(examples: ISO 20022 · UBL 2.1), or national infrastructures already exist, TRSB standards require their reuse. E-invoicing networks (examples: PEPPOL, GSTN, CFDI), payment rails (examples:SWIFT, UPI, PIX), identity and consent frameworks (examples: eIDAS, Account Aggregator) — these are not replaced. They are connected. TRSB provides the clearing layer that transforms their outputs into legally certain, immediately settleable financial instruments.
Model legislation & registration principals for the legal layer
Open governance standards ensuring equitability for all stakeholders
Technology standards to promote reuse, not reinvention
CSD internal regulations and process frameworks that translate standards into operational procedures
TRSB does not build clearing systems.
It writes the standards that make any clearing system work — everywhere.
Legal certainty that turns invoices into valuable collateral / institutional investable assets
Competitive, multi-provider markets — no oligopoly lock-in
Immediate working capital for the supply chain, liquidity untrapped, unleased
Cross-border interoperability without jurisdictional convergence
Aligned with the CSD regulations, any natural person, never mind age, gender, race, religion, location or incapacitated status, legal entity, never mind size (nano, micro, small, medium, large, corporate), credit quality or location or other legal organization like marriage, co-ownership, trust etc. may, provided they have been identified, act as an owner or title holder, beneficiary, guarantor or buyer. Any of those entities that are authorized to conduct business may act as a supplier. Each of such entity, at its discretion, may have financial or business agents.
The standards are designed to serve the interests of each without privileging any one of them in terms of access, rights, obligations or cost per transaction.
New investment opportunities in short durations and various risk profiles; absolute certain of ownership rights and full control of assets owned or beneficial interest in an asset; full power over the ownership; automatic receipt of any funds; collaborative debt collection; holder-in-due-course protection; CSD settlement finality.
Easy settlement; automatic accounting; streamlined invoice acceptance and disconformity management; supply chain resilience through financially healthy suppliers; potential for dynamic discounts and debt renegotiation.
Access to institutional financing without conventional collateral; immediate liquidity at rates determined by the quality of their services and goods; easy customers satisfaction
Help friends, family and other relationships. Higher returns and universe of business for insurers
New valuable collateral in clients, extend services by integration; new risk information and reduced PD, LGD, EAD; higher diversitiation; lower operational expenses; higher business volumes; open standards and open-source reference implementations reduce integration cost.
New class of instruments to trade; diversification; reduced operational due diligence; enhanced portfolio management.
New asset to trade in; new class of potential investors; international interoperability.
Enhanced customers service; serving of currently informal customers; focus on value add services and advice instead of operations.
Facilitating stakeholders and government beneficiaries .
Business Clearing and Settlement Finality has a high value in particular for MSME. MEMS associations are invited to represent the MSME in the governance of the Standard.
New data for risk assessment; real time risk assessment; portfolio risk services; enhanced predictive power possible; enhanced universe of potential customers.
The incentive for invoice authentication increases tax compliance; clearing infrastructure creates authenticated transaction data for VAT audit and economic monitoring; formalisation expands the tax base; tax withholding on the business flow.
DVP‑i settlement reduce systemic payment risk; clearing infrastructure data provides macroprudential visibility; New monitory instrument that allows injecting liquidity straight into the supply chain.
Aggregated CSD data provides macroprudential visibility into supply chain payment flows, credit stress, and systemic concentration. Massive increase of number of "issuers" of debt.
Settlement provides the reason for each funds flow, reducing AML opportunities. Continuous ownership traceability in CSD registers provide superior AML/CFT visibility.
To provide a market structure that ensures fair reward for value created.
The following principles underpin the standards of the Trade Receivable Standards Board. They are not aspirational statements but operational commitments reflected in the specific provisions of each standard.
Access to working capital should reflect the quality of a company's product and services — the reliability of its buyers, the consistency of its delivery, its quality assurance — not merely the size of its balance sheet or the availability of traditional collateral.
The same stock of capital can support more economic activity when it is not trapped in settlement queues. DVP i settlement, continuous netting and the ability to trigger cashflow optimization processes ensures that all funds are used productively.
Traditional finance like term loans and overdraft come in chunks and have to be repaid in chunks. The Standards enable financiers to provide the right amount of finance at the right moment.
The Standards avoid central lock in. The collaborative layer consist of a network of nodes, within a jurisdiction and accross. The standards can work in any jurisdictional tradition: common law, civil law, hybrid, and cross-border interoperability does not require jurisdictional convergence.
Business clearing creates direct financial incentives for enterprises to operate formally. It ensures getting paid and access to finance like any other company while removing the efforts and costs of financial fulfilment like administration and accounting.
Each service or activity in the collaborative infrastructure is openly accessible by the owner or its agents to enable all stakeholders to develop product for their customers. As a single source of truth under control of the owner, it may freely mix and match the optimal product.
The TRSB is constituted with equal access and interoperability as a founding principle. The governance of the TRSB is aligned with it.
The TRSB performs monitoring of compliance with the Standards, or part of the Standards, when requested, until supervisory monitoring has been established.
The following four commitments are reflected in the specific text of every standard, process rules and governance rule the TRSB maintains.
No provision of any TRSB standard confers preferential treatment on any stakeholder or class of stakeholder. A small cooperative financier and a global bank operate under identical obligations and enjoy identical rights..
Standards are designed for interoperability within and across jurisdictions.
No single constituency controls the TRSB. Board composition rules, committee structures, and majority requirements are designed to prevent capture by any commercial, governmental, or jurisdictional interest.
All TRSB standards including policy, processes, regulations, governance documents, and reference software implementations are available for the benefit of parties that aim to comply with the standards; principally equitability and interoperability and contribute to the development and maintenance of the Standards.
The Trade Receivable Standards Board has been in operation since 2004. The following records the principal milestones in its development.
A group of trade finance practitioners, legal experts and technology specialists get together and define the founding premise: the absence of open, interoperable standards is the principal barrier to efficient MSME trade receivable markets. 21 September 2001 is celebrated annually as the founding date.
The Trade Receivable Standards Board is constituted as a Stichting under Dutch law in Amsterdam. The founding premise: the absence of open, interoperable standards — not lack of capital — is the principal barrier to efficient MSME trade receivable markets.
The initial version of the standards is developed. The TRSB Standards cover transaction closing, pooling principals, instrument compliance and legal protections standards.
The first transaction in a standards compliant platform is closed.
The standard is renewed, enhancing multilingual and jurisdictional compliance . The TRSB Standards are extended with the Activity (smart contract) and non-Repudiation standards (immutable distributed ledger). Standards for e-invoice registration and settlement are enhanced.
Trefi, a TRSB Standard compliant platform in Peru, wins the Best SME Finance Initiative award.
A full revision incorporates lessons from the first decade of transaction experience and incorporate the IOSCO FMI standards. The internal regulations framework is introduced as the operational layer of the standards architecture.
The total of TRSB compliant transactions passes €100 Billion.
Feasibility studies are performed in Asia and Africa and standards are enhanced to cater for the local situation.
Peru's enactment of Ley 29623 enacts the first statutory CSD-based business clearing framework. The implementation validates the core TRSB legal architecture.
The TRSB adopts "business clearing" as its overarching framework concept. The tenth full revision is IOSCO and supervisory compliant.
The TRSB is governed as a charitable Stichting under Dutch law. Its governance structure is designed to obtain input from all stakeholder categories and prevent capture by a singular interest group and to ensure that standards development serves the broadest possible range of stakeholders.
Constituted as a Stichting under Dutch law, the TRSB has no shareholders and distributes no profit to any party. Under its constitution all income must be retained for standards development, promotion, and education.
Governed by a Board of Directors and an Advisory Councils representing each major stakeholder category. Standards are developed by standing Committees open to participation by any qualifying stakeholder.
The TRSB Secretariat is based in Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
Enquiries regarding standards participation, committee membership, jurisdictional engagement, and standards compliance should be directed to the Secretariat.
The TRSB does not provide legal, financial, or regulatory advice. Enquiries of that nature should be directed to appropriately qualified professionals in the relevant jurisdiction.
Email
info@trsb.org
Address
Keizersgracht 62
1016 CS Amsterdam
The Netherlands
The TRSB is an open organisation. Participation in its standing committees is open to organisations with a legitimate interest in business clearing standards. There is no membership fee for committee participation, though the TRSB requests that participating organisations contribute substantive technical or legal expertise to committee work.
Jurisdictional authorities, legislative bodies, and regulatory agencies are invited to engage and discuss the adoption or adaptation of TRSB standards in their jurisdiction. test