Despite widespread digital transformation efforts, modern digital trade operations remain stubbornly tied to physical paper. The Organisation of Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) estimates that 15% of the overall value of traded goods around the world is composed of hidden costs, much of it a result of the manual processes underlying most transactions, creating massive bottlenecks. This heavy reliance on paper forces back-office teams into hours of manual labor, preventing financial institutions from achieving a true paperless trade finance solution and severely bottlenecking transaction throughput.

Iron Mountain’s trade finance automation software eliminates this "paper tax" by replacing manual workflows with intelligent, end-to-end digital software. Utilizing advanced document AI and AI agents, it instantly digitizes and validates complex trade documents—like Bills of Lading and Letters of Credit—slashing the hidden overhead. Instead of teams spending days cross-referencing files, the software quickly automates governance and discrepancy checks, shifting staff to fast exception handling. By accelerating turnarounds from days to hours or minutes, Iron Mountain helps financial institutions maximize throughput and achieve a secure and automated, paperless trade ecosystem.

Most manual effort is consumed by sorting documents, executing anti money laundering (AML) compliance, and reconciling data across unstructured pages, which spikes human error and processing times.

Our trade finance software, Digital Trade Back Office, automates these manual back-office tasks, processing key trade finance documents, including:

• Letters of credit
• Bills of lading
• Invoices
• Inspection certificates
• Insurance documents

By automating organization, extraction, and compliance checks, the software eliminates operational friction, slashes processing times, and ensures high-stakes accuracy across your entire trade pipeline.

Yes. While traditional IDP extracts the data, our agentic AI takes it a step further by actively reasoning across files to detect complex, cross-document discrepancies that humans easily miss.

Operating as an autonomous digital assistant, the system flags mismatched data across disparate files—such as conflicting cargo weights on a Bill of Lading versus an invoice, altered buyer names, or mismatched dates. Furthermore, it intelligently processes handwritten trade documents alongside standard text, capturing variations and autonomously cross-referencing information to validate compliance and accuracy before data ever reaches your back-office teams.

Iron Mountain offers a secure and robust end-to-end solution powered by AI and backed by 75 years of trusted expertise. Iron Mountain’s global footprint spans 141 imaging sites across 45 countries, processing over 3 billion documents per year. Iron Mountain securely handles document-centric assets and processes, from transport to digital and physical storage. Our team of professionals and our proven platform are trusted by top-performing banks, insurance companies, and financial institutions worldwide.