The AWDC said in a statement yesterday that in the context of the global crisis affecting the diamond industry, the “Antwerp World Diamond Centre is turning to new technologies to meet the industry’s alternative financial services needs for international transactions”.

Noting that there was a worldwide decline in diamond sales “across the board”, AWDC reported that Antwerp’s diamond trade for 2015 declined 18% to US$ 48.3 billion from US$ 58.8 billion in the previous year.

“The global diamond industry took a beating this year,” said AWDC CEO Ari Epstein. “Thanks to our strong foundations and ability to be agile and adopt innovative new technologies, Antwerp has succeeded in safeguarding its world-leading position with regard to rough as well as polished diamonds. Antwerp will consequently emerge from this downturn in a position of strength, poised for a profitable year ahead.”

Elaborating on its new approach, the AWDC said: “With a commitment to innovative new solutions for driving the industry forward, AWDC is starting a pilot programme with two so-called FinTech companies to offer international transactions that are fast, transparent and instant.”

Epstein explained further saying: “The international terrain on which the Antwerp diamond industry does business means that we, as the industry’s representative organisation, are always searching for new technologies and ways to distinguish ourselves from our competitors. Last autumn we organised a Diamond Equity Investment Symposium, together with Morgan Stanley, with the objective being to promote transparency to institutional investors that are considering investing in the diamond industry. Today we announce that this has resulted in a concrete cooperation agreement with two FinTech companies: Uphold and FX4BIZ.”

Uphold CEO Anthony Watson commented: “With Uphold, AWDC and its thousands of trading partners can move, hold, transact, clear and settle in any currency or form of value they choose - all securely with real-time transparency and traceability.”

AWDC announced that the two pilot projects that will run for a full year would be able to accommodate a total of 60 diamond companies.