Digital Voucher Financing and Transfer in a Three-Echelon Supply Chain

Blockchain technology has been increasingly adopted in supply chain finance. This study investigates how payment programs - digital voucher financing and transfer programs - are facilitated by blockchain and compares them with traditional bank financing. Using a game-theory approach, we inspect the equilibrium payment strategies for the firms in a supply chain and highlight the value of digital vouchers in transmitting an issuer's credit, utilizing upstream credit with flexibility, and precising the supply chain's financing amount. Under buyer credit superiority in which the buyer's credit score is higher than the supplier's and surpasses a threshold at which the supplier benefits from accepting a digital voucher, the manufacturer should transfer the digital voucher to the supplier, who then finances with it. Under supplier credit superiority, the manufacturer should transfer the digital voucher to the supplier, who then holds it until the due date. However, under buyer and supplier credit inferiority, the manufacturer should hold the digital voucher; traditional bank financing becomes the optimal payment program in this instance for both the manufacturer and the supplier. When further extending our model to a manufacturer leadership setting, we find that the equilibrium payment strategies hold true. However, a voucher transfer is more likely to be adopted in a supplier leadership setting. Furthermore, our empirical evidence supports the theoretical results of firms' choice of payment programs to use the digital voucher to facilitate supply chain finance implementations and improve performance