Press Release: Verifiable.Trade Foundation Announces Next Phase of Work on the ISTTP Specification

The Verifiable.Trade Foundation today announced the next phase of work on the specification of the International Secure Trade Transfer Protocol (ISTTP), an open protocol designed to enable the secure, verifiable and interoperable exchange of trade-related data across and between existing global platforms and ecosystems.

Building on an initial high-level specification, this phase will focus on refining the protocol and advancing towards implementation.

ISTTP aims to address one of the fundamental challenges of digital trade: the inability of systems to exchange trusted data seamlessly across organizational, technical and jurisdictional boundaries. While digital documents and proprietary APIs have improved connectivity, trust itself remains fragmented across platforms and networks.

The protocol introduces an approach where trust travels with the data, independent of underlying platforms. Using cryptographically verifiable identities, signatures and claims, ISTTP enables organizations to exchange trade-related information directly, securely and without requiring participants to migrate to a new platform or network. This enables different implementations to interoperate through shared semantics rather than requiring uniform infrastructure.

The next phase places a strong emphasis on implementation credibility, including the definition of canonical data schemas, clear Trading Data Gateway (TDG) boundary contracts, and a shared choreography model to enable seamless interoperability across ecosystems.

The work will be validated through a set of reference flows reflecting real-world trade scenarios, ensuring practical applicability and alignment with industry needs.

As part of this next phase, TradeVeris has joined the initiative as a contributor to the development of the specification and the broader technical architecture.

The Foundation also announced that Hans Maatman, CPO of TradeVeris, will serve as Chief Architect for the initiative. Hans brings extensive international experience in identity management, trade and supply chain ecosystems, and enterprise software development. He is also recognized as a senior expert in KERI and vLEI related architectures and has been actively involved in the development of decentralized trust infrastructures.

“Digital trade does not only require interoperable systems. It requires interoperable trust,” said Stephan Wolf, Chair of the Verifiable.Trade Foundation and former CEO of the Global Legal Entity Identifier Foundation (GLEIF). “ISTTP is designed as an open protocol layer that allows trusted data to move across platforms, borders and ecosystems without forcing participants into another centralized platform or network, but instead connecting existing systems through a shared, open exchange layer.”

The Verifiable.Trade Foundation positions ISTTP as open digital infrastructure for global commerce. The work builds on existing international standards and emerging legal frameworks for electronic trade documents, while introducing a practical trust layer for machine-readable and verifiable data exchange that bridges previously disconnected platforms.

The Foundation invites technology providers, trade platforms, financial institutions, logistics companies, standards organizations, governments and open-source contributors to participate in the development of the specification and the growing ecosystem around ISTTP.

Organizations and individuals interested in contributing to the initiative are encouraged to contact the Foundation and join the collaboration effort.

About Verifiable.Trade Foundation

The Verifiable.Trade Foundation is a Swiss not-for-profit organization dedicated to developing open protocols and digital trust infrastructure for global trade. Its mission is to enable interoperable, verifiable and secure exchange of trade-related data across supply chains, finance, logistics and regulatory ecosystems.

About TradeVeris

TradeVeris is a technology company focused on digitalising trust in global trade. The company provides identity and access management (IAM) infrastructure for trade ecosystems, enabling organizations to securely identify parties, verify roles and exchange trusted data using decentralized identity, verifiable credentials and open standards such as KERI and vLEI. TradeVeris develops implementation-ready solutions that integrate with existing platforms and ecosystems, helping to make identity, authorization and data exchange interoperable across supply chains, finance, logistics and regulatory environments.