Trade-credit exchange apparatus

1. A method of creating spendable trade-credit assets comprising the steps of:

receiving, in a trade-credit inventory processor, from a first participant via a first user interface, (i) an amount of first trade-credit to be issued; and (ii) one or more valuation methods to be used for the amount of first trade-credit to generate a first inventory object associated with the first participant;

updating, by the trade-credit inventory processor, a first participant treasury account associated with the first participant in a tradable elements database to reflect the amount of first trade-credit to be issued as a first tradable element object;

receiving, in the trade-credit inventory processor, from a second participant via a second user interface, (i) an amount of second trade-credit to be issued; and (ii) one or more valuation methods to be used for the amount of second trade-credit to generate a second inventory object associated with the second participant;

updating, by the trade-credit inventory processor, a second participant treasury account associated with the second participant in the tradable elements database to reflect the amount of second trade-credit to be issued as a second tradable element object;

receiving, from the first participant, in a trade-credit exchange processor, a first trade-order including (i) an identification of the first participant, (ii) a demand, and (iii) an amount of first trade-credit offered for meeting the demand, wherein the amount of first trade-credit offered is less than or equal to the amount of first trade-credit to be issued from the first participant treasury account or an amount of a first spendable trade-credit asset in a first participant holdings account;

in response to receiving the first trade-order, updating, by the trade-credit exchange processor, an active order database to reflect the first trade-order as a first active order object including (i) an identification of the first participant, (ii) a first demand, and (iii) an amount of first trade-credit offered for meeting the first demand;

receiving, from the second participant, in the trade-credit exchange processor, a second trade-order including (i) an identification of the second participant, (ii) a demand, and (iii) an amount of second trade-credit offered for meeting the demand, wherein the amount of second trade-credit offered is less than or equal to the amount of second trade-credit to be issued from the second participant treasury account or an amount of a second spendable trade-credit asset in a second participant holdings account;

in response to receiving the second trade-order, updating, by the trade-credit exchange processor, the active order database to reflect the second trade-order as a second active order object including (i) an identification of the second participant, (ii) a second demand, and (iii) an amount of second trade-credit offered for meeting the second demand;

automatically determining an exchange path linking through a closed-loop series of one or more active order objects stored in the active order database, the exchange path including the first trade-order and the second trade-order, wherein each link in the closed-loop series connects a trade-order including a demand to a corresponding amount of trade-credit offered for meeting the demand, wherein the linked demand and corresponding amount of trade-credit being offered for meeting the demand are each associated with a different active order object defining a linked pair of active order objects, further wherein each of the linked pair of active order objects is associated with a different participant; and

in response to automatically determining the exchange path linking through the closed-loop series of one or more active order objects including the first trade-order and the second trade-order, creating in the first participant holding account the first spendable trade-credit asset corresponding to the amount of first trade-credit offered for meeting the first demand in the first trade-order, and creating in the second participant holding account the second spendable trade-credit asset corresponding to the amount of second trade-credit offered for meeting the second demand in the second trade-order;

wherein the first spendable trade-credit asset is only created after the amount of first trade-credit offered for meeting the first demand in the first active order object is linked to an active order object from a participant other than the first participant; and

wherein the second spendable trade-credit asset is only created after the amount of second trade-credit offered for meeting the second demand in the second active order object is linked to an active order object from a participant other than the second participant such that the first and the second spendable trade-credit assets are only created after the exchange path linking through the closed-loop series of the one or more active order objects including the first trade-order and the second trade-order is automatically determined, and further that the first and the second spendable trade-credit assets are not fungible assets.

2. The method of claim 1 , wherein the one or more valuation methods includes an issuer-stated valuation method.

3. The method of claim 1 , wherein the one or more valuation methods includes an auction-based valuation method.

4. The method of claim 1 , wherein the step of automatically determining the exchange path linking through the closed-loop series of one or more active order objects stored in the active order database includes using at least one algorithm selected from a group consisting of a trade-search algorithm and an automated value-matching algorithm.

5. The method of claim 1 , wherein the trade-credit exchange processor is further configured with software to run algorithms to automatically determine a most efficient exchange path linking through the closed-loop series of one or more active order objects stored in the active order database.

6. The method of claim 1 , wherein the trade-credit exchange processor is further configured with software to run at least one valuation process selected from a group consisting of one or more issuer-stated valuation processes, one or more auction-based valuation processes, and combinations thereof.