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Portland startup Steamchain takes on payment processing for logistics and shipping

Another day, another interesting fintech company being built in Portland. This time, it’s Steamchain, which has set its sights on simplifying the payment processing systems in transportation and logistics.

Companies in the multi-trillion dollar international transportation and logistics industries are operating on razor thin profit margins. The costs of currency conversion and currency fluctuation risk has a significant negative impact on their bottom line. The Steamchain solution will save money for carriers, logistics service providers and their partners, by utilizing smart contracts to enable B2B payment processing that reduces the high cost of currency conversion, currency fluctuation risk and cumbersome document flow, while providing an immutable ledger of transactions to prevent fraud.

According to the Portland Business Journal:

Steamchain’s product has been in development since 2009 and launched last year. The company has six paying customers that are all large organizations with high volumes of transfers. Biggs noted one customer has $1 billion in revenue.

The company built smart contract software using the Ethereum blockchain. Customers enter the agreed upon information and the software converts the currency in question and makes the payment to the trading partner. Steamchain doesn’t transmit the money itself but works global exchanges that handle the licensing and regulations. The company has filed for four provisional patents around its technology.

For more information, visit Steamchain.